


Offspring

by Nekhs



Series: Living After LIFE [1]
Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Actual Disaster Eddie Brock, Adopted Children, Alien Biology, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asexual Character, Attempted Sexual Assault, Because I Can't Really Describe Something I've Never Interacted With, Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Dead by Daylight mention, Dead in Canon, Delusions, Demisexuality, Depression, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Father Figures, Firefly References, Friendship, Gender-Neutral Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Hallucinations, Homelessness, How Do I Tag, Human Biology, Human Experimentation, Hunters & Hunting, Hurt/Comfort, I Don't Even Know, I Haven't Read the Comics, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, Implied/Referenced Sex, Inuyasha (mentioned) - Freeform, Long Hair, MAGIC HAIR, Mental Health Issues, Mental Link, NaNoWriMo, Other, POV Alternating, Pansexual Character, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-Venom (Movie 2018), Protective Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Recovery, Schizophrenia, Sharing a Body, Shopping, Showers, Sleep, Slice of Life, So I'm Just Making Shit Up, Solitary Confinement, Speech Disorders, Strangulation, Suicidal Thoughts, Tags May Change, They Watch TV and Play Games Based on My Interests, Trans Female Character, Venom Has A Large Family, i guess, self-care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-08-14 02:59:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 28
Words: 46,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16484750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nekhs/pseuds/Nekhs
Summary: They are Venom - two losers in one remarkably functional body, brought together by the unimaginable cruelty of the LIFE Foundation's pursuit of a better future.V was barely conscious of their time in captivity. How could they be expected to remember what all had been inflicted upon them?Rated M because people get eaten onscreen. That's just how it is,  sometimes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which two losers in love are interrupted by a knock on the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit where it's due! The idea of Dan helping Venom figure out what it is about brains that make them tasty was lifted pretty much directly from an amazing fic named ["Yours, Mine, Ours"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16404260) by [tanarill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanarill/pseuds/tanarill).
> 
> Check it out!

Eddie Brock reached for a beer, working out the argument in his head.

His hand stopped well before it reached the bottle, because V still felt the need to protect him from everyday activities. It would be sweet, if it hadn't already started to get a bit frustrating.

**Poison, Eddie.**

The symbiote's voice no longer rattled his bones when they spoke. He'd become comfortable with their presence,  and they took care to be gentle with him.  Mostly.  Sometimes,  he asked for things a bit rough,  after all, and they were happy to oblige.  He couldn't have picked a better partner if he tried - but then,  how could he have known an actual alien, a creature that could weave itself into his very bones,  was an option?

So, he tried to flex his fingers,  idly, working out what to say. "I know,  V." His fingers were under his control, but V had claimed - ah, his forearm was the problem. "But a lot of stuff humans eat is supposed to be some kind of poison. Remember the mint patties?" Hesitantly, V retracted their control,  and Eddie grasped the bottle, closing the refrigerator - and then closing it again.

Sure,  he'd won the LIFE settlement,  but he never quite felt right using the money on himself. He _could_  replace the refrigerator,  but it still tasted like they'd bought his silence, sour on his tongue.  Being fair,  there were things in his life he couldn't make public - namely, V. So he'd taken the money and then just ... never used it.

**We want tots.**

The fierce,  apex predator wanted tater tots for the sixth time that week. Of course.  A smile tugged at Eddie's lips,  and he set the beer aside. "Aren't you supposed to be a carnivore?" The words were entirely playful - he'd already opened the freezer to fetch one of the dozen bags languishing there.

When it became apparent that he'd be using his shitty little toaster oven more often, Eddie made a point of finding the most garishly floral pot holders he could buy.  V grumbled that the color hurt their eyes, but they seemed to understand that it was a joke, some kind of game - which was good,  because in retrospect, Eddie couldn't have explained the joke if he tried.

He snatched the pot holders from their hook before even grabbing the baking sheet: fire was one of the few things that could actually harm his beloved,  and after the rocket ... well, Eddie wasn't taking any chances.

And neither was V. **Humans are fragile,**  they grumbled.  **Why would you consume poison?  Do you want to die?**

The idea startled a laugh out of him. "Nah, V, it's - it isn't like that,  not since you came along. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me,  you know that,  right?" He smiled softly, opening the package of tater tots. Feeling playful, he started to arrange them in a smiley face. The 'eyes' took three tots apiece, and the mouth simply _had_  to mimic V's fanged maw.

**Then why?**

A shiver of sensation coalesced over his left collarbone, forming into a thick splotch of inky black. Tendrils of the silky substance twined themselves around his neck,  looping possessively, before forming a head with which to observe his 'art.'

The first time they'd done that,  he'd nearly pissed himself in terror.

Now, he brought one of the tots up for them to crunch down, still frozen,  before running his fingertips affectionately across their skin. "Well," he murmured, savoring their shared pleasure,  the rumbling purr rolling through his bones, "Mostly,  because we can. It's like how you _can_  make some kind of use of these, even if they're not actually food for you,  right?"

Carefully carting his starchy masterpiece over to the toaster oven, he settled the tray in place. Flipping the oven closed,  he set the timer and settled into his single remaining chair to wait.

They tilted their head to the side,  mimicking a thoughtful expression despite their all-too-alien face.  **"Yes ..."**

It was true - save for the occasional bit of metal or plastic,  V could break just about anything down into usable material. How else could they turn Eddie - normal,  boring,  human Eddie - into a nine foot tall tank lined with sharp fangs and sharper claws?  V needed meat to survive,  but they _enjoyed_  a much wider array of foods. In fact,  given that they preferred their meat raw, bloody,  and still struggling to escape, a party sized platter of tater tots was often much more interesting than a dull, dead hamburger.

Eddie's stomach rumbled. He still refused to admit that a part of him enjoyed the rush of killing prey, particularly since V's prey of choice couldn't legally be on the menu. 'He was a bad guy,  I swear,' was unlikely to hold up in court.

**"We should hunt, Eddie."**

V noted his train of thought, because of course they had. He grinned, lazily.  "And miss out on your tots? Not a chance,  big guy." These days, hunting was actually fairly optional. Dan had helped them isolate why,  exactly,  V found brains and chocolate to be so damn tasty - and it was a chemical that could be made into a pill. Eddie found a supplier online,  and V's diet was no longer a problem. "Anyway, so it's like this - humans? We're built to eat all kinds of stuff. That's why our teeth aren't all sharp like yours, you know?"

V bobbed their entire head in a nod,  baring all of their teeth in a smile that probably should have looked threatening,  but didn't.

"So,  since we need to eat all kinds of things to survive, we sort of got to the point where we'll eat just about anything that won't eat us,  first."

V listened,  head rolled slightly to the side,  then twisting over,  under,  over again. It really _should_  be unsettling. To Eddie, however,  their semisolid nature was just part of who they were. In his eyes, their antics were cute.

**"Not cute, Eddie."**  They clicked their teeth at him,  snapping those rows of razor sharp needles together in front of his face.  **"Would eat you first.  Except not. Because we love you,  Eddie."**

He grinned,  leaning in to peck his lips against their forehead in a gentle kiss. "And _we_  love you,  big guy." A shiver of happiness rolled through V at the word 'we,' an answering echo pinging off of Eddie's own nerves. "It's - even when I'm low,  you know, I don't - " He blinked away the first ghost of tears in his eyes.

**"You no longer want to die,  because we are Venom. Yes?"**  They purred, the sound too low for the human ear,  but rumbling through him sweetly. **"This is good. So, if not to die,  why the poison,  Eddie?"**

He paused for a long moment,  swallowing back the surge of emotion. "A-ah, yeah,  that - so like I was saying,  we're built to eat all kinds of stuff.  Our liver,  our kidneys - a lot of stuff that would kill other animals ends up part of our everyday diet,  you know?"

**"So ... it is because you can?"**  Was that approval in their tone? He should have known they'd like something that simple. 'Because we can' had been their excuse for more than one ill-advised midnight adventure, after all.

He rolled that thought through his head,  slipping the bright pink mittens onto his hands just before the timer. "I mean,  partly. Usually it's because the poison tastes good or does something for us."

**"Beer doesn't even smell good, Eddie."**  They curled tightly around his shoulders as he reached oh-so-carefully into the oven. The memory of flame was far too recent for them,  as well.

He managed to extract the tots from the oven,  a sense of pride filling him: not a single tot had come out burned. Practice had finally made him a master,  it seemed - Anne would be proud.  Probably.  "Nah, but it helps us relax. Coffee does the opposite, helps us get up and focus."

They had tried to hold a very similar discussion about caffeine, actually.  It failed miserably,  because Eddie Brock without coffee was basically a less-functional zombie. There weren't many arguments that could pierce the fog around his pre-coffee brain, such that even V was forced to grudgingly allow his dependence on that particular 'bitter poison.' They still didn't like it, but they allowed it,  at least.

Further talk stalled for the moment - Eddie wasn't foolish enough to get between his symbiote and their favorite meal, after all. They'd finished only one of the 'eyes,' however, when their own milky-white orbs narrowed to slits.

Their head tilted, turning toward the door. A vague  note of - fear? - pulsed through Venom, the line between symbiote and host blurred until it was nonexistent. V drew themself up, then dove under Eddie's skin, blending themselves in among his muscles.

Only _then_  did he hear it: a strange, timid knock on his door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to my incredibly self-indulgent nanowrimo! I've fallen facefirst into this fandom and I can't seem to get up (it's because I don't want to). 
> 
> I have never read the comics, but I watched the movie, did a wiki dive, and came up with Ideas.
> 
> These nerds are adorable tbh.
> 
> Did you know phenylethylamine (wow, what a mouthful) is sold online? Neither did I! 
> 
> Now we know, and knowing is half the battle. 
> 
> I personally hc symbiotes as non-binary, usually presenting as whatever gender their host prefers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which V is forced to face the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason, I wasn't quite expecting this level of positive response! Thank you!
> 
> Second verse is my attempt at writing V's perspective!

As Eddie answered the door, V threaded anxious tendrils throughout his body,  ready to cocoon him safely within themself. They would fight, if necessary, and gladly so. Nothing would take Eddie from Venom, now that they had claimed what was theirs.   
  
Eddie preferred to talk, however, so they waited. V knew _what_ lie on the other side - what,  but not _who._   
  
The strange host was short, as humans went,  a scrawny, underfed creature. V had the sense that - she? Yes, she - was not yet fully mature.  In her current state, it was likely she never would be.   
  
Her skin was an unhealthy, ashen shade,  except for the numerous brownish markings scattered haphazardly against the grayish-white. Eddie had once called those markings 'freckles' - his own were 'tattoos.' The difference was important - one was natural,  an ineffective form of camouflage, while the other was a form of art which humans cut into their own skin.   
  
Her head was adorned with a thick,  tangled, sweat-soaked mat of copper-colored hair. Her clothing,  similarly streaked with perspiration, looked as though it might have fit, once. Now, it draped wearily over her skeletal frame.   
  
This host was dying, just as the prey creatures had.  Just as every host before Maria had died. Just as Maria herself had died,  despite their best efforts.   
  
Eddie's words hung in the back of their mind,  accusatory.   
  
_What happened to 'we?'_   
  
They had time to view the girl in her entirety: her greenish eyes stared, unfocused, at a point just above the doorframe, their vacant expression never seeming to register that the door had been opened. There was nothing above the doorframe: V made sure to check.   
  
Eddie loved humanity.  His love had been the reason V had given Earth a chance.   
  
Seeing this dying youth created a weight inside of him, a seed of anguish that would probably blossom into pain and guilt soon enough. This was not the first lost cause they had encountered since becoming Venom. It was merely the first that they might actually be able to help.   
  
"Uh - hello?"   
  
Her gaze sharpened, refocusing on Eddie, and V could sense the Other stirring within her.  It recognized them, and yet -   
  
An expression V couldn't quite place spread across her features. "Eddie? Brock?" Her lower lip split open, dry and cracked,  as she rasped the question. It took her a moment to react, her smallish, pink tongue dipping out to taste the blood before she brought up one of her wrists, pressing the bloodstained sleeve against this new injury.   
  
_Should he call 9-1-1 before or after she collapsed?_   
  
The question rolled through Eddie's mind, a dangerous idea that V couldn't ignore.   
  
**NO DOCTORS.**   
  
Eddie nodded slowly,  almost managing to conceal his wince as V roared the demand across their link. Gently - because humans were fragile,  after all - he spoke again.   
  
**Maybe one doctor.  Call Dan.**   
  
To his credit,  Eddie didn't ask many questions.  Not right now, at least, though he was filing them away for later.    "Yeah, yeah, I'm Eddie - uh, who's asking?"   
  
"We - I - Dawn." She frowned into her sleeve, the effort of concentration showing on her face.   
  
V could sense the puzzle coming together in Eddie's mind. As one of the humans (a man whom V was not allowed to eat despite very much desiring to do so) had said so often,  Eddie could act like 'a dumbass,' but he was genuinely quite intelligent. It was one of the many things V liked about him.   
  
**They are like us,** V confirmed, softly. **Let them in,  Eddie.**   
  
Frowning, he opened the door wider, motioning to the girl. "Why don't we, uh,  talk inside?" He glanced down the hallway, unaware that the girl mimicked the action. She stepped inside, her attention caught immediately by the mostly untouched sheet of tots.   
  
The girl spared one wary glance at the window before snatching a fistful of potatoes from the tray and stuffing them greedily into her mouth.   
  
"You,  uh, you hungry?"   
  
Eddie's voice caused a full-body shudder to rock through her. She took a long moment to swallow what she'd eaten, before looking back at him. This time,  her expression was easy to decipher. Fear, raw and primal - she recognized them as a predator, perhaps.   
  
"May - I?" The words sounded stilted,  forced. "Sir?"   
  
Anger rolled through Eddie, but he made a point of ensuring that it didn't show on his face. "Yeah, yeah sure. I'm not stopping you,  you want something to drink?"   
  
She nodded once,  scarfing down their meal in relative silence. Good.   
  
Eddie, meanwhile,  turned to the sink, finding a glass and beginning to clean it - he couldn't identify the residue clinging to the bottom of it, that was his excuse. In truth,  it seemed very important that he did not let the girl see his face, probably because of the fact that, at that moment, he looked very much like he wanted to hunt someone specific,  and could not currently do so.   
  
_Talk to me,  V. What's going on, here?_   
  
He still had to focus, forming each word slowly,  to 'speak' to V directly. Mostly, they just drew his thoughts directly from his mind - it was more efficient. Seething rage boiled inside of him, rage and old pain.   
  
**She is carrying our - my - offspring. They are too young. She is dying.**   
  
V liked to see through Eddie's eyes. Their senses let them perceive the world in all directions, but sight as Eddie understood it was much more pleasant. Eddie, however,  didn't have eyes in the back of his head - he was unaware of the way the girl moved from the table, checking the door, pressing on it. Then, still clutching the last few tots in one hand, she moved to the window.   
  
Eddie rinsed the cup, then began to fill it with water.   
  
The girl - 'Dawn' - walked stiffly, as though she were fighting herself. Her free hand came up to smooth the blinds down, pausing only when Eddie finally turned to look at her once more. Another strange expression, and she pulled away from the window, quickly.   
  
_Someone hurt her, V._ Eddie forced himself to smile,  setting the glass of water on the table. _Someone hurt her,  bad._   
  
"'S for you,  yeah?" He reached for the poison, stepping away from the table.   
  
Dawn finished the tots, then hesitantly reached for the water,  looking down at it, then up at him - then seizing the cup and drinking it down greedily.   
  
**Drake?**

V assumed that the man had not been kind to any of the humans.  If anything, he'd seemed frustrated at their fragility. Even as they suggested it,  however, Eddie was already sending them a wave of disagreement.

_No - no, this is the kind of thing that ends up part of you._ He opened the beer, nose wrinkling slightly. _Like yeah, Treece kicked my ass, but that doesn't change who I am - you know? It takes a lot more than one or two beatings to get like - well, like this._ He managed to get halfway through the poison, even with how bad it smelled, before Dawn interrupted him,  holding the glass out to him with both hands.   
  
He blinked,  then took the glass. "Want some more?" She nodded,  so he moved to refill it. "You uh, mind telling me why you're here,  now?"   
  
"Eddie Brock." She said his name with a faint frown on her lips. "You - escaped. Twice." The hand with the bloody sleeve came up, two fingers extended even though Eddie couldn't see them. V was fairly sure that was odd. "And - survived."   
  
_Escaped._   
  
Eddie turned,  offering her the glass again. He nodded, slowly. "So ... what,  you want my help?"   
  
Delicate fingers collected the glass from him.  Her hands were much smaller than Eddie's - of course,  humans experienced pronounced sexual dimorphism, even when both specimens were mature. Maria had possessed small,  delicate hands, as had Anne.   
  
Small. Fragile.  Breakable. They had warned Anne away from their mission because of those differences,  because she seemed too fragile to be useful. Perhaps this youth would prove them wrong as Anne had - she seemed determined to survive, at least, all of her attention on the cup in front of her as she drank it down. A faint smear of red was visible on the glass as she offered it to him again.   
  
"... sick." She brought her bloodstained sleeve up,  fingertips poking out of it just enough to show that she was shaking her hand from side to side. Eddie knew that as a gesture to communicate uncertainty.  "Dying?"   
  
He collected the glass from her, shaking his head. "Not if I can help it. I know a guy, but uh,  first - how do you feel about chocolate?"   
  
The girl's eyes widened. Eddie finally identified that expression for V: _Hope._   
  
**What does it mean?**   
  
"Here, let me get some out. My,  uh, _friend_ \- well,  we've got a pretty big sweet tooth." He opened the refrigerator,  producing one of the (now headless) chocolate rabbits they'd gotten on sale after the day on which humans celebrated the rapid reproduction of prey animals.   
  
Even without its head, the imitation rabbit was roughly the size of the girl's torso. It would have to do.   
  
Eddie handed over the entire thing, smiling at the disbelief in her eyes.   
  
_Hope ... hope means she's trusting us to do what's right._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun trivia: hc edition! 
> 
> V took Eddie's nickname for them because they can only be Venom together. Two halves of one whole - that's also why they struggle with the first person singular, because having a host is pretty critical to their identity.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Anne arrives.

Dawn had made alarmingly quick work of the headless bunny, but Eddie supposed he should be grateful that she wasn't digging through his trash for day-old chicken. Already,  she was doing better than he was, so … well, that was something anyway.

He made painstakingly sure that she was okay with him calling a friend for help.  It was slow going - she seemed almost determined to answer every sentence in short,  one- or two-word bursts, substituting gestures wherever possible.

Right now,  though, she was passed out on his couch. Eddie had realized _after_ the fact that he didn't actually have Dan’s number, so instead,  he’d called Anne, since a) she had a car big enough to fit a sleeping kid into,  b) she knew whether or not Dan was still at work, and c) she was one of about three people in the entire world who knew about V.

He was grateful she'd found it in her heart to forgive him.

“So when were you gonna tell me you had kids,  V?” He spoke quietly, worried he'd disturb Dawn. Then again,  given how exhausted she looked, he wasn't sure that even his old neighbor Guitar Hero could have managed to wake her up at this point. “Seems like something you mention on the first date,  you know?”

V didn't even laugh at his (admittedly weak)  attempt at humor, remaining coiled somewhere in the pit of his stomach.

 **It was pointless,** they muttered. **If Drake could not even sustain mature symbiotes, the offspring they created were doomed from the beginning.**

Eddie shivered,  a sympathetic reaction - V's entire ‘body’ seemed to be vibrating with the mix of tumultuous emotions, each new thread of sensation more confusing to them than the last. It was weird to think about - V had mentioned, once,  that before Earth they hadn't really _done_ emotion. The entire concept was as foreign to them as they were to Earth, apparently. “You okay, love?”

 **We want to kill him again,**  V announced,  settling on anger. Anger was pretty easy for them to wrap themself around - Eddie wasn't surprised. **He is dead already,  but if we could, we would put the pieces back together just so we could make him scream while we took them apart again.**

Eddie nodded, closing his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, we do,” he agreed, voice soft. He pressed one hand to his chest, rubbing at it in something like a comforting gesture. “So … they made you, uh,  create … more of you?”

 **They … took pieces of us. Yes.** There was a sense of uncertainty in V's voice, as they spoke, as though they weren't entirely sure of what exactly had happened. **Without a host, we are … less. We don’t …**

They paused, rifling through their own memory.  Eddie let them - they had time, after all. Anne still had to make it through the crush of people trying to get home from work. **It was after the prey creatures.  We remember that. The first human had been a poor match and died immediately. So they took ‘samples.’ For a while,  the samples were still part of us, but distant. Then, they were not.**

V lifted Eddie’s shoulders in a shrug. It was still sort of jarring, to have parts of his body acting on their own,  but he was getting used to it.

**Anne is here.**

Eddie opened the door just before she could actually knock. It was almost funny,  the look of surprise on her face - if he were still just human, he'd have no way of knowing she'd arrived. But he wasn't - they were Venom,  now.

“Hey! Glad you could make it - you're looking really good today.” It was true - she always looked great, but especially when she wore her professional outfits. She'd just gotten off work,  herself, when he called, so of course she hadn't had time to change out of the skirt and blouse … thing … that she wore in order to eat other lawyers alive.

There was something about her flawless presentation,  with not even a single hair out of place, that always used to do it for him. Even now,  he could still appreciate her - she was a beautiful woman.

 **“Good enough to eat.”** V sent a wave of amusement with the words,  to show they were joking. They bared all of Eddie's teeth in a grin that was almost certainly terrifying.  

Anne rolled her eyes. “Good to see you,  too. Where is this mystery girl?”

“In here,” Eddie waved her inside, motioning to the waif collapsed on his couch. “V says that she - uh - ” He scratched the back of his head, unsure how to explain it. “The LIFE Foundation figured out how to make more of them, I guess? She's … Anne,  she's worse off than I was, and you saw me in the lobster tank.”

Anne didn't always show her emotions on her face,  especially not right after work. Something about her opponents seeking any sign of weakness - she locked her feelings up, mostly. Unfortunately,  that left Eddie pretty much unable to guess what she was thinking.

 **Anne is not weak,**  V announced,  decisively. **Small, yes,  but not weak.**

They'd know as well as anyone, Eddie figured. You don't share a body with someone and not get to know who they are. V had told him she _voluntarily_ served as a temporary host, negotiating their momentary partnership with far greater skill than Eddie had.

 **She is very smart, Eddie. We should eat Dan so she can be with us.** Another rush of humor reassured him that V was only joking - they'd grown fond of Dan, once they got to know him. It was very difficult not to like Dan, and not just because he was a good looking guy.

Eddie blinked,  realizing that Anne was waiting for a response. “Sorry,  what? V was uh, singing your praises.”

“... Thanks.” She was doing the thing where she pressed her hand to her chin. She had spotted a dozen problems Eddie hadn't considered yet,  it seemed. “Eddie - what do you plan to do when they come looking for her?”

Eddie didn't get a chance to respond - V had seized the ‘wheel,’ so to speak.   **“Eat them.”**

“Uh … huh. And if that doesn't work? They know what hurts you,  they know where you live - you guys are inviting trouble, here.” She watched him,  her own expression cool, calculating.

Eddie felt his face contorting into a dozen expressions at once. **“Our offspring. Ours to protect. Shouldn't be bonded yet - too young.”** They looked toward Dawn,  and for a moment, Eddie would swear he could actually _see_ the symbiote inside of her, gold foil wrapped around her organs, pulsing softly. **“Much too young.”** They were … worried.  Eddie wasn't actually aware V could care about people other than Anne - and,  well, himself, of course. This was new.

 **Because of you,  Eddie.** They stepped back,  giving him back control with a wordless apology.

“I'm … I can't believe I'm saying this,  but - look, it's not that I don't agree that you deserve a say in what happens to your ‘offspring,’” Anne made actual air quotes with her fingers,  at that, “But you guys are going to need help. I’ve lived with Eddie for longer than you have, and I can tell you from experience that he has absolutely no idea what all a growing girl is going to need. And that's assuming that her _human_ parents don't have something to say about this?”

Eddie held up his hand,  stalling V's response as well as anything else Anne might have to say. “About that … Anne - there's something else. It's how she was acting, how she was talking and,  uh, not. I think - ” Eddie gnawed his lower lip, picking his words cautiously. “I think there might be something going on in that department. It's just a hunch, but … I mean,  why go to a total stranger, why not just go home if things at home are fine?”

“You think she was being abused.” It was a statement,  because Anne knew all the scars on his heart. Bless her. He was so,   _so_ glad they'd managed to remain friends.

Eddie could sense V poking at his memories, trying to piece together why this already hurt. _Later, love. Promise._

“Yeah,” he said wearily. He wasn't looking forward to later. Those memories held nothing but pain, those bridges long since burned. But V deserved to know everything. They were _bonded_ , as V called it,  tied together more completely, more permanently, than even the most loving marriage. The line between them blurred more by the day - and terrifying as that was, Eddie wouldn't trade it for anything. Speaking of which …

“There's more than just that,  but I can't tell how much is - you know,  this whole thing, bonding, it's - even if you manage to pull through,  it's disorienting, and you come off looking a little …”

Anne raised an eyebrow. “I remember the lobster tank,  Eddie.”

“... yeah, like that. V says that her, you know,  symbiote - they're too young for one another.” Eddie gnawed his lower lip. “And maybe that's all it is, but I'm not sure, you know? So I wanna have Dan take a look.”

 **Even young, even starving,  they should not be like that.** V considered their words for a moment,  then amended: **Especially then. Need to hunt,  Eddie. Can't hunt like that.**

Anne nodded. “What are we waiting for,  then? Let's get them to the hospital - I already let Dan know we'd have a … special patient for him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He is absolutely never going to live down the lobster tank.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now for somebody completely different!

Dawn woke slowly, her mind churning through mud.  She felt better than she had in days, but things still weren't really making sense. A man was speaking,  then a woman, then the man again, then the woman.

She wasn't really sure where she was, only that she was lying on her side,  on a strange couch. Except it wasn't a couch, because couches didn't generally come with seatbelts, on account of the fact that they usually didn't go much of anywhere,  and this couch did have seatbelts, which she was aware of because they were digging into her side.

She also wasn't going anywhere, not at the moment. Car doors opened, car doors closed, and then the door by her head opened up,  and she was looking up, and panic took hold, sharp and awful, because for a moment, just a moment, the woman looked far too much like Mother,  and she thought she'd escaped, she thought she was free, but if Mother was here, then her freedom was an awful, terrible lie.

Dawn screamed.

“Fuck! Eddie - Eddie, are you okay?” The woman didn't sound like Mother. Mother didn't care about other people,  not even Father, not really.

Then,  she remembered the man, Eddie Brock, who was a reporter and also a survivor.  Then, she remembered the Others, the gold inside of her, the black inside of him. She covered her mouth with both hands, but the damage was already done - an audible thump from somewhere outside the car, and the click of heeled footsteps on concrete, worried noises.

The Other spoke, their voice low and harsh,  and she knew it for the Other by the way it echoed, and the sense of it,  just outside her sight. **“Annie. What was that?”**

“I - I don't know,  V, that's - Dawn, Eddie said your name is Dawn, right?” The woman returned,  and Dawn picked out all the ways in which the woman was not Mother. She nodded,  covering her mouth with both hands, a wordless promise that she wouldn't do it again. She didn't mean to hurt the man - wait.

If her voice had hurt the man, but not the woman … why? The golden light inside of her stirred at the presence of the Other so near,  curious and unafraid. She liked the light. It hadn't been afraid of anything yet, and she had the odd urge to keep it safe, so that it never grew fearful like her. She didn't imagine that would be very difficult to manage - she needed to keep herself safe,  and the light was tucked away, safe inside of her bones.

What if Eddie hated her now? She'd hurt him - it was a very real threat.

Oh. The woman was talking. “...um.”

She didn't remember what had been said,  and that was cause for cruel words, loud, sharp -

Anne was kneeling next to her. “Dawn? You're going to be okay.” Her voice was soft,  warm, and Dawn _believed_.

“We know.”

It seemed wrong to disinclude the Other. It could hear,  after all, even if it didn't understand. She smiled at Anne, shy, apologetic, as she slowly pulled herself to sitting. Her eyes fixed on the man,  standing behind Anne, looming, and the Other wearing him as a cloak. If she'd had words to spare, they would have died on her tongue, fear sending her scrabbling to the far side of the car, pressing against the door. She had hurt him and he would retaliate in kind because that was how it was supposed to be.

“V, you're scaring her. Step back, please?”

The low rumble didn't sound exactly happy, but the Other did as requested. **“Only standing,  Annie.”**

Belatedly,  Dawn found the word she needed.

“Sorry - sorry. We - sorry.” She spoke softly, peering out over Anne's shoulder at the darkness beyond.

And the darkness peered back. **“... Strange human. Safe human. We will protect you.  No more of - that.”**

Protection? It didn't make sense,  it seemed wrong in every sense of the word. But if those were the terms,  she could accept them, as puzzling as they seemed.

“Okay.” She looked to the door on her side of the car. Finding it unlocked,  she opened it, just managing to keep her balance when it was no longer supporting her weight. She was almost sure she could probably trust them - but she wanted the space to run, just in case. Was that wrong? She didn't know.

The light inside of her was sleepy, warm. She felt full, too full, and they needed to sleep. The light needed her to sleep.

Before she could think to stop it,  she found herself sinking to her knees, and then she was warm,  and safe, and completely unconscious on the pavement.

 

* * *

 

She woke again,  because people were talking.  Lots of people, two men now, a woman. She remembered - the woman was not Mother,  the Other still wore their human like a cloak, and … someone new. The voices were worried, but the sunlight inside of her was happy, its entire self bubbling with new,  exciting knowledge, and there had been more chocolate, and the other-Other was filled with Knowing.

Dawn stirred, and there was a rush of movement,  and then a warm hand was pressed against her mouth. She blinked, blinked again, looking up, and it was the Other, their eyes swirling with black and white and a reminder that she _promised_.

An impetuous, playful urge took her, and she licked the crease of their palm. Freezing when she realized what she'd done,  her eyes went wide - and then, the Other stuck out their own tongue. The length of it unfurled, pouring from Eddie's mouth until it could run against her cheek like a friendly dog.

She giggled, because the whole thing was funny,  and why _shouldn't_ the Other be able to make their tongue do that? It made as much sense as there being Others in the first place,  shadow and light filling up an empty vessel like water into a glass.

The Other removed Eddie's hand from her mouth,  and the woman who was not Mother exhaled loudly. “Crisis averted, I suppose.”

Dawn nodded agreement even as the Other spoke,  voice rumbling, a simple **“Yes.”**

There were questions,  then. She got tired of words quickly, and rapidly lost track of who was even asking the questions, but she answered as much as she knew how.

It wasn't so bad: any time the plate of hospital food ran empty,  she held it out, and someone (Anne, usually, the woman who was not Mother) went to refill it with more meat,  and more potatoes. The sunlight chittered at her, speaking without words: the dark one had shown them important things,  things that needed strength, and food, and she was hungry, after all.

The people asked her about the LIFE Foundation.

How had she gotten there? Had they offered her something,  or …?

“Money,” she replied, spearing the entire slice of ham with a fork and chewing on it. She swallowed. “Never paid.”

How had she escaped?

“We sang.”

Sang?

She looked at the Other, then very deliberately covered her mouth with the unoccupied hand. She had promised.

But she remembered. When she sang,  the walls had rattled. She learned that the glass had an exact pitch to it, an echo inside of it that she could match. She saved that knowledge for the right moment - and when the alarms were ringing, and everyone was running, and the other girl was hammering on the wall, demanding her release? That was the right moment.

She sang, and when she did, the glass had exploded into so much glittering dust.

The Others, they had screamed, she remembered that. Their cries came in human voices, wracking sobs of pitiful agony. How badly must she have hurt them? They'd hate her,  for sure.

How could she even do that?

**“We cannot do that. Such sounds hurt us.”**

The dark one had a very distinctive voice,  even when they were wearing Eddie's skin - Dawn was already coming to know their voice like her own.

She didn't have an answer for that,  so she asked the sunlight, without sharing words, because neither of them had much use for language anyway. As far as the sunlight knew,  they had always been exactly as they were - the sunlight had become itself as it poured into the space between her bones, molding itself to her. “We … can?” She shrugged - to her, it was that simple.

The humans chattered among themselves. There was talk about how maybe the LIFE people had made changes, maybe that was why she could do things that “Venom,” whoever that was, could not, maybe that was even why her ‘symbiote’ had become its own person.

Dawn couldn't bring herself to care anymore.

She was very full, and very tired, and she laid down in the hospital bed and went back to sleep, feeling for the place where her sunlight twined around tendrils of inky blackness. She tried, in the same way she'd done for the sunlight, to show them how grateful she was.

And then she was asleep, because she needed to sleep, so the sunlight could make her _better_. They would fix her - they promised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna lie, this was probably the most entertaining chapter for me to write yet.
> 
> In the comics, Scream's portrayed with a kinda red-and-gold aesthetic. I like it!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which mental illness is discussed, and humans are kind of gross.

V had long ago abandoned the notion that Eddie was an average human. That was fine: they didn't want average, they wanted  _ Eddie _ .

However, there was a difference between being unusual and being … sick. Eddie had begun to believe that Dawn's brain was ill, a concept V would ask for more detail on later. They were learning patience, for Eddie - a lot of things simply had to happen  _ later _ . The thing about later, though,  was so far, later always did eventually arrive. 

So, V put things aside for later.

This, however, seemed like something that might become urgent. 

“What are you thinking about,  V?”

They were driving to a store, someplace other than Mrs. Chen's, because Anne said that young women would need a lot of supplies that Eddie didn't currently own. Also, the human was too small to borrow Eddie's clothing,  and because her presence would draw attention, she could not stay in the hospital with Dan. It was apparently a money thing, because every stupid problem was a money thing. 

‘We can't just take the chocolate, V, that's why I have a job!’

But Anne was here, and V couldn't deny the objective truth that Anne was smarter than Eddie. That might be useful, since V was pretty sure Eddie didn't know the answer to his own questions,  not yet. Maybe when he woke up. 

**“What does it mean if a brain is sick,  Annie?”**

Anne glanced over at them,  but then returned her eyes to the road. “How do you mean, V?”

**“Eddie thinks Dawn’s brain is sick.”** Venom didn't like sickness. They'd had a ‘cold’ once,  and it was awful. Human bodies were miserably inefficient. What if their brains were the same?   **“What does that mean?”**

Anne did the human thing where she tried to eat her own lip. Their frontmost teeth were inadequate to the task, which made it a pointless, if endearing gesture. “Well, there's a lot of different ways the brain can get sick,  V. I know you were doing something with her symbiote - did they …?”

**“They did not realize that her brain was unusual in structure. We have a larger sample size.”** V considered, looking over their shoulder at the sleeping youth. Under their guidance,  their offspring had already begun to restore her body to a healthier state.

Anne cracked a smile. “I'll bet you do.”

**“We have inhabited more hosts than our offspring. Also, brains taste delicious.”** V held up Eddie's hands in the gesture of surrender he used when making a joke at his own expense. It kept his hands slightly lower than when he was embarrassing them in front of an enemy, while also somewhat more directly in front of his body. 

They were proud when Anne laughed: they had been working on humor for some time,  now. “All right. Well - it depends on what kind of sickness it is, and then it also depends on how well the person is dealing with it. It could be a big problem, like … you know Eddie … he wanted to die. And while I don't think that's true anymore, that's one of the worse ways that a brain can get sick.”

**“... Humans are very inefficient. It amazes us that you have survived as a species for so long.”** V shook their head,  resolving to figure out how they could fix Eddie's brain being sick. They had not fully understood what caused him so much pain, and if it was anything like a cold, they would eat this sickness anywhere it could be found. They'd already started to improve on some of the parts of his body that had been broken before they arrived, and a brain couldn't be that complex, could it? It was made of meat.  Tasty meat, but still meat.  **“What if it isn't a** **_big_ ** **problem?”**

Anne considered. V liked to watch her think, because they knew for a fact that she was very good at doing so. “It’s still a problem, just - less of one. Did you notice how she didn't  _ really _ talk,  not like we are? She barely said anything that wasn't a direct answer to a question.” V opened Eddie's mouth to refute the idea that this constituted a problem: in their opinion,  humans talked far too much. Anne held up a finger, keeping her other hand firmly in control of the car. “Most of us can't just talk in each other's heads, V. That can be a major barrier to human communication.”

**“... Inefficient,”** they grumbled.

Anne found this funny,  too. “Yeah, V. That's humanity for you: inefficient monkeys pretending to be better than we are.” 

Privately,  V thought that was an argument for finding every human a symbiote. Maybe Riot and Drake had a good idea,  they just did it the wrong way? They would ask Eddie about that. Later, of course. 

“So, uh, is Eddie okay in there? I don't really want to leave Dawn alone,  but we're going to need his card, V.” 

Everything came back to the money thing. V was beginning to hate money, which,  they conceded, meant it was better if Eddie took care off it.  **“He is sleeping. There was - damage. We … we do not wish to be separate.”**

“‘We’ don't, or you don't,  V?”

Anne was very smart.  Sometimes, that was a problem.  Like now, probably.  **“... ‘I’ do not. Eddie does not either! He said so! But …”** They glanced back at Dawn, once more,  and Eddie's lips had twisted into a frown.  **“Human screams do not usually reach the lethal range. It hurt us. We - I - are fixing it. It will be less efficient if Eddie is awake.”**

“Is he going to be climbing into the seafood display again, or is it all right if you wake him up?” There was an odd note to her voice, one that V didn't yet fully comprehend, but which she had used repeatedly in Eddie's memories. It sounded like patience,  so that was the label they gave it, for now.

Eddie’s mind stirred, groggy, as V gently drew him up from slumber.  **“He will be at least as competent as he was before we became Venom.”** They drew back,  silently congratulating themself on making more humor. The past was the past, and humans enjoyed making humor of mistakes.

“Great,  so we're back to the Eddie who insulted a billionaire  _ and my boss's boss _ on live TV,” Anne teased. “Good morning, Eddie.”

Eddie blinked groggily, his thoughts tasting muddy. “Morning, Anne.”

 

* * *

 

Anne made a list of things that Dawn would need, including a guess on how small the clothes should be,  and strict instructions to buy things from the men's section instead of the women's section, which made no sense to V. Eddie agreed to the instruction, however baffling it seemed.

With Anne remaining in the car, Eddie took out the blue tooth  _ thing _ which was neither blue, nor a tooth, but instead served to convince strangers that he was merely speaking with someone distant,  rather than someone inside of his head. This was another illogical thing they did to blend in among humans, because humans had expectations about their world. If those expectations were challenged, they tended to react poorly, and V was not allowed to decide someone was bad just because they were reacting to something unusual that Eddie had done.

With the blue tooth that was not a tooth firmly lodged in his ear, Eddie walked inside, and V could finally pry some answers from his groggy mind.  **Eddie. Dawn is a female of your species,  correct? Why are we to purchase clothing created for males?**

“Ah - well,” Eddie tapped at the device in his ear,  pretending he was using it. “Anne explained that one to me a while ago. Basically, it's because women's clothes aren't made to any one standard, so if the person you're buying a gift for can't try the clothes on, there's literally no way to know if it's gonna fit at all.” 

That seemed ridiculously inefficient.  **Why?**

“Man, I dunno,  V.” Eddie picked out seven shirts in various shades of black, gray,  and white, and seven pants. Most were made from the tough, stringy material known as ‘denim,’ but he also selected a couple of pairs which he referred to as ‘scrubs,’ citing them as being comfortable. “I guess you could say it's for ornamental reasons? I always just figured it was a money thing.”

**Everything bad is a money thing,** V grumbled. Eddie laughed, but V could sense that he agreed with that assessment. 

After some deliberation, Eddie also selected a jacket,  just in case. While V kept them at an optimal temperature at all times, jackets prevented them from getting unexpectedly wet. 

V found humans’ aversion to water baffling. Their bodies were mostly liquid, and the near-absence of insulating fur or feathers made them unusual among land-dwelling Earth creatures. Their largest cities were built with access to water. They required it to survive. Then again,  they bathed themselves in the substance regularly, and often submerged themselves in it for entertainment. V supposed it was about control - they liked to control things, and became upset when their circumstances were no longer theirs to influence. 

The list was exhaustive in nature,  though V noticed that many items were simply reproductions of things they already owned,  resized for a smaller human. 

Some,  however,  were not.  **Eddie. What is a ‘pad?’**

The question seemed to startle Eddie, which made little sense - the item in question was wholly unfamiliar. “It's,  uh, a thing for - God, I never figured I'd be answering that question, V.” He checked the list, selecting the size that Anne had written down, then comparing the words on the package to the ones on the list. And then again, to be sure. “It's a health thing,  for women.”

**So … Dawn will need this to maintain her health? How does it function?** Eddie's cheeks warmed,  blood rising to the surface in response to his embarrassment. V tried to exercise patience, keeping their voice reasonable.  **If we are to guide our offspring in caring for their host, we must know how their host’s needs differ from our own,  Eddie.**

Eddie winced, because V wasn't wrong really, but this was definitely not a conversation he wanted to be having right now. “It's, uh - okay, so - about once a month,  women do this thing called menstruation - it's part of the reproductive cycle, and it usually happens if the woman in question hasn't, you know - made a baby.”

**So human women are supposed to breed every month? No wonder there are so many of you.** V inspected the package in more detail - it was squishy,  containing numerous, smaller packages inside. The outer wrapping was plastic, preventing V from clearly discerning the material inside. 

Eddie choked back a laugh. “God, no - nowhere near that often, V. And if we're very lucky,  Dawn won't be breeding at all, so we're going to need a lot of these.” 

**… we don't understand,  Eddie. And you still didn't explain what ‘menstruation’ is.**

“... Can we look that one up online,  V? This isn't really a conversation to hold in public.” That was a phrase Eddie used any time V tried to talk about things humans considered ‘taboo.’ 

Why would a health thing be taboo? Was it disgusting,  like the buildup of phlegm Eddie had experienced when sick? Probably - V had to concede that there were a lot of things about the human body which were unnecessarily messy, even when it was functioning at optimal levels. V sent a sense of agreement, even though they were getting rather tired of ‘later.’

The rest of the goods were selected uneventfully enough, adding a few more items of clothing,  a large, portable container to store it all in, and a large bag of assorted chocolates. 

The cashier gave Eddie a strange look, seeming almost suspicious, until he said that his niece was coming to live with him. It wasn't exactly true, but V was grateful that Eddie was willing to accept their offspring as his own family. 

The trouble came when Eddie arrived at the car, loaded down with their supplies, and Anne had to unlock it for him. “This guy with a dog was watching us the whole time you were in there, Eddie. He only cleared out when you guys showed up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler alert, V: human brains are, in fact, more complicated than that, to the point that humans don't even know exactly how they work and our medical practices in regards to neurochemistry tend to devolve into highly educated guesswork and testing what works and what doesn't. 
> 
> \- A note about gender -
> 
> I've read a few fics about trans!Eddie, and while that's an awesome take, it is not the one I'm going with for this fic. Eddie is, however, aware that trans people exist (and, therefore, it isn't just women who menstruate), but that's just one too many things for the poor boy to try and explain in one shopping trip.
> 
> V barely comprehends gender as a concept in the first place, and mostly accepts it as a construct to facilitate breeding. The idea that nature and society can get it backwards, sideways, or upside-down would be beyond baffling, and it hasn't come up for them yet.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an understanding is reached.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is one of the reasons that the fic is rated mature, being honest. This probably is NOT the best way to deal with this, incidentally, and it's certainly no substitute for a long term fix. 
> 
> Please be aware of the mentions of child abuse in this chapter and take care of yourselves.

It didn't take an investigative journalist to know that there was more going on around Dawn than they'd managed to uncover so far,  but, well, Eddie happened to be an investigative journalist. He was burning with a dozen questions, and V had a dozen more they were patiently waiting for him to answer.

Together, they managed to get her upright easily enough. She woke up a bit when V nudged her with one of their tendrils, the inky black easy to miss since Eddie made a show of gently shaking her shoulder. For one,  brief moment, her eyes swirled like fire, red and gold swimming over her grayish-green irises. Then, she was smiling, sitting up of her own volition. She made a point of waving goodbye to Anne, only turning away when the car was out of sight. _Looks like Anne made an impression._

**Of course she did. Anne is Anne.**

Eddie stifled a laugh, if only because he wouldn't be able to explain the joke to Dawn. “Come on, kid. Assuming you were serious about wanting to stay with us?” It was one of the questions Anne had asked, and they'd been unsurprised to learn that she didn't have anywhere else to go. Nowhere _safe_ , anyway.

“Yes,” she said simply,  collecting several of her own bags. She seemed determined to carry as much as she could manage, not complaining,  even though Eddie could see that she was struggling with the weight. All of her focus was on the task at hand - until suddenly, it wasn't. She stalled, looking directly at their neighbor's slightly-ajar door, and moved to stand behind Eddie until it closed.

Guitar Hero had been a walking noise complaint and something of an asshole. This new guy? Quiet, unfailingly polite, and sort of a creep.

“Don't worry about him,” Eddie began, shutting his own door behind them as he dropped his own bags on the ground.

Then,  he considered his own words,  and began to backtrack, only for V to interrupt, seizing their mouth for a moment.   **“If he harms you,  you should eat him.”**

Dawn mimicked Eddie's actions,  carefully setting her bags next to his.  She gave them an odd look, tilting her head to the side. Curiosity was written on her expression - not fear, not even mild concern, just … mild interest.

“What the fuck, V?” Belatedly,  Eddie realized he should probably not curse in front of the kid. Too late now. “No, they're right,  you should protect yourself, but we don't always have to jump straight to cannibalism! Christ - I'm sorry,  they're … you know.” Eddie found himself scratching the back of his head, realizing that it was entirely possible that she _didn't_ know.

She tilted her head to the other side, her eyes catching on the spot on his left collarbone.  He realized that V was starting to form themself, and he nearly told them to stop. If she was going to live with them,  though, it was probably something she should get used to.

Eddie braced himself for some kind of freak out - another terrified shriek, maybe. Instead, she just watched,  unblinking, as the tendrils swirled out of him, looping up, across the back of his neck, and forming V's face just above Eddie's right shoulder. Then, it was her turn to surprise him. Instead of any conceivable reaction he'd considered,  she reached her fingers up toward V's face.

“May we?” She tilted her hand so it was palm up, waiting with it held just under V's fanged maw. Before Eddie could answer,  V was bumping their face into her hand, and she was caressing their ‘skull,’ scritching under their chin like V was a particularly exotic pet, rather than a murderous alien that had just emerged from Eddie's skin.

Twin tendrils of gold extended from inside the bloody sleeve, reaching out to hesitantly wrap themselves in among V's black. With a start, Eddie realized that he could actually sense _something_ from the other symbiote, overwhelming curiosity about anything and everything. V was talking to it,  he was pretty sure, though neither of them used any kind of language that he could understand. Even more disorienting,  he realized there was _another_ foreign sensation just beyond that - contentment laced with a pervasive sense of anxiety.

What the fuck.

Gently, with a sense of regret, Dawn pulled her hands away from V, though the strands of gold never retreated. Without her support,  they thinned, drooping like wet strings of stretched taffy, but Eddie got a restless sense that whatever she needed to do couldn't be put off any longer.

So he watched,  feeling incredibly awkward as the only person in the room who wasn't doing anything at all. Two more streams of golden liquid shot out,  catching themselves around V's neck and then twisting, giving themselves more support as Dawn made it to the door.

She pressed her hand against it, ensuring it was fully closed,  then reached up to carefully, deliberately slide the deadbolt into place. Eddie never bothered with it, himself. Maybe if he had, it would have taken Treece's goons a bit longer to force their way into his apartment,  but on the whole, the only thing in his apartment worth stealing was the laptop and his TV. Why bother?

She inspected the door handle, even,  finding that it had a second lock she could manage from the inside. Apparently satisfied,  she turned around, picking her way around Eddie and the chattering aliens, somehow managing to never once disturb their conversation by disrupting the unbroken line of gold chaining them together.  She made her way back to the window, smoothing the blinds with her hands, reassuring herself that _no one could see_.

No one,  except Eddie, who she'd apparently decided was ‘safe.’

“So, uh, do you mind telling me what that's about?” He gestured at the window,  vaguely.

She looked to him, blinking. “Watchers,” she said, voice all-too-quiet, gaze skittering to the side for a moment. O- _kay_ then. There was a note of alarm,  as though she'd just remembered something critically,  vitally important. She looked up at him with an expression of deathly seriousness. “Sorry. We are.”

“For, uh,  for what now?” Eddie racked his brain, trying to piece together what this was about. _V?_ He asked, but the symbiote was apparently deep in conversation, sending a feeling back that could loosely translate as a busy signal.  Fair enough, he'd put off more than his own share of things for later.

She seemed confused by his own confusion, peering up at him before looking down at the ground. Her hands threaded together behind her back, and she rocked back and forth,  a rush of fear spiking in her heart. “For - hurting you.”

The echo of her mind was faint,  stretched through two different connections like a hilariously alien game of telephone, but it was impossible to ignore the terror running through her veins. Eddie felt a spike of anger in response,  but rushed to silence it, trying his best to wordlessly communicate that it wasn't at her, never at _her_.

There were far too many signals for Eddie to parse,  then - confusion, worry, and warning pushing against his mind from what felt like every direction.

It was hard to think, with all of that, but he _knew_ how important this was. For once in his life, he was determined not to fuck things up.

“You didn't mean it,” he said,  moving slow as he approached, reaching out to her like she'd done to V. “Look - whatever happened before,  you're here now. I won't punish you for something you couldn't control, and I'm pretty sure V wouldn't let me even if I wanted to,  which I _don't_.  Okay?”

She reached up for his hand,  warily, pausing before she touched it. “Why?”

“Why am I not gonna punish you, or why does V care?” He was learning, slowly, but he _was_ learning.

She mulled over his questions,  then peered up at him, concentration twisting her face. He could sense how much effort was going into making sense of - well, everything,  he supposed. Finally, she replied: “Yes.”

“Well … like I said - ” he pulled his hand away for the moment,  beckoning for her to sit with him on the couch. After a moment, she followed, settling beside him. He got a sense that both symbiotes were watching this exchange with intense fascination. “You didn't mean to hurt me. There's a world of difference between, I dunno,  punching a guy because he scared you, and coming at him with a knife, you know? It comes down to intent, and even the law agrees on that, you can ask Anne. Premeditated murder is considered worse than manslaughter, and both of those are worse than anything you do to protect yourself.”

She took several long moments to process this, but he could sense the panic ebb away as he talked. She nodded, then looked to V, wordlessly asking for their input. Her own symbiote - _Sunny_ , her mind identified them - had draped around their neck, looping over and over like so many strings of Mardi Gras beads.

 **“We -** **_I_ ** **\- care, because it is right to protect one's offspring.”** V turned their entire face toward Dawn, their eye-spots tilting slightly to give an approximation of a kind smile. **“Eddie showed us what is right and what is not. He is good. You are also good.”**

Eddie waited patiently for her to consider the words, the sensations. With the rudimentary link between them,  there was no doubt in his mind that her own was struggling, and yet it was getting tripped up over basic concepts. The idea of an alien goo-monster being forced to cohabitate inside her skin was apparently just another Friday night, but when she tried to put her thoughts into words, every step of the process became bogged down.

Eddie made sure to force his body to relax, borrowing from some of those meditation techniques he had tried to learn, focusing on wordless patience and understanding.

Surprisingly,  he received a near instantaneous rush of gratitude in response.

“... We did bad,” she managed,  finally, having sorted her thoughts into a coherent order. “ _Should_ be punished.”

Eddie could understand that feeling, as well. He reached for her hand,  focusing on reassurance and waiting for the reply.

Deep, abiding guilt had come to replace the panic,  a sensation he was all too familiar with.

He sent another rush of understanding mixed with disagreement,  even as she settled her hand into his. "You apologized. I won't hurt you,  Dawn. Not like - I'm not gonna hurt you,  okay?"

She nodded, slowly, but the guilt twisted, curled inside of her like a snake.

"Will it help,  if I make things even between us? If I - punish you,  for hurting me."

The words tasted sour on his tongue, but it might be better,  at least in the short term - he'd remembered seeking out such things in a more self-destructive way,  after he left home. Ideally,  she wouldn't feel like she needed it, but even a blind man could see that it would take time to get over this. 

Dawn frowned, thinking over his words. The sense came that this wasn't how things were - she just wasn't included in these decisions. 

His heart ached. 

After a moment of deliberation,  she nodded firmly,  squaring herself as though she was readying for some kind of beatdown. God, this kid really was a bigger mess than he had been. 

She wouldn't be able to let go of hurting him without some kind of resolution. He understood that better than most. 

So, despite everything inside of him recoiling against the act,  he raised his hand. Cupping it so that the strike would be loud,  rather than painful, he laid a single swat across the back of her wrist.

There was a jolt of surprise, a shock rolling through her before settling into an odd sense of calm.  “We’re even. Okay?”

She looked up at him, wonder in her eyes, as she withdrew her hand,  absently running her thumb across the back of her wrist. This, too, took her several long moments to process,  and when she finally had a response, it seemed painfully automatic.

“Thank you,  sir.”

Once again, Eddie had to swallow the urge to find her parents and let V eat them.  Slowly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess here's a good point to mention again that I haven't read the comics.
> 
> Trivia time: A more relevant statistic about mental illness is that those who present symptoms are significantly more likely to be the _targets_ of violence, including abusive behaviors from relatives and romantic partners who don't - or can't - understand.
> 
> Eddie has no intention of filing this role in any sort of long term capacity, but he gets that often people yearn for the familiar even when the familiar is bad for them. We are creatures of habit.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dawn's hair is important to her.

Dawn got the sense that Sunny didn't really want to disentangle themself from ‘V,’ but she had a lot to think about,  and Eddie had purchased a  _ lot _ of things for her. He mumbled something about how someone ought to take responsibility and looked - shy? No, embarrassed.

Sunny had even more to consider, burbling inside of her with excitement over all of the knowledge that V had been able to share. She could feel them shifting around inside of her, inspecting everything and working on the things that had gotten broken. There was the vague echo of guilt - they had hurt her, taking pieces off her insides in order to survive - but it was like Eddie had said to her, wasn't it? They had never meant her any harm, any more than she had meant to hurt Eddie. She checked to make sure they understood what they were trying to do and then just … let it be. 

They  _ had _ learned a lot from V, and V had apparently even made note of several basic differences between a girl's body and a guy's,  somehow. There weren't labels to anything, but Sunny still had a better idea of how her insides were supposed to work than she did.

Now confident that all of that would take care of itself,  she located the guy-soap Eddie had bought for her, as well as a towel that was apparently hers. “May we?” She asked, holding out the items in question, and he barely looked up from his laptop before nodding his assent. There was an image on the right, some kind of graph. The word ‘Menstruation’ was prominently displayed on the top of the screen, right next to the Wikipedia icon, but she pretended not to notice. 

He was a guy,  maybe he didn't know anything about it. He'd bought super-sized pads for her, and though she figured they'd probably fit badly, the fact he even tried was more than she could have really expected.

_ Everything _ he'd done so far was more than she could have expected. She found a brand new wallet in the duffel bag, and twenty dollars with a note saying ‘For Dawn.’ 

There were enough clothes for a whole week, panties (no bras, but she hated them anyway so that was okay), even socks and a pair of shoes. It was all really plain stuff,  too, the kind of clothes that a guy would buy for another guy. The shoes were sneakers that would be really comfortable once she got used to them (she'd been barefoot before;  the LIFE people never let her have her things back). 

He'd even made a point of helping her fold it all up so it would all fit in the bag.  If she wanted, she could just  _ go _ ,  and he promised he wouldn't stop her. 

And so,  she stayed. 

Picking out what to wear next wasn't too difficult, but it also wasn't something that she had been allowed in … actually, ever. Mother had dictated her wardrobe,  and the LIFE people had given her a single off-white jumpsuit to wear for her entire stay. After she escaped, she couldn't afford to eat, much less buy her own clothes,  and … she decided not to think about what all she  _ had _ managed to stuff into her mouth to try and survive for the last few months. Not all of it had been dead before she got to it, and the few things which actually resembled proper meals had mostly come from a dumpster. 

Freedom was important,  but she'd missed being allowed real food and shelter. Napping on the couch had felt like impossible luxury, and now she was going to get to bathe in privacy and comfort. 

And it was all because of Eddie.

She finally settled on the black tee and the black drawstring pants and one of the plain pairs of white panties, feeling like the choice shouldn't have been that difficult,  but still proud of the small accomplishment. Collecting everything she'd need, she made her way into the bathroom, and locked the door.

If Eddie truly needed to get in,  she suspected a locked door couldn't stop him for long. She was starting to think, though, that he  _ wouldn't _ intrude, even if she didn't bother to lock the door at all.

She rubbed her wrist,  absently.  _ We're even. _ He understood that she couldn't just leave the offense unpaid, and so he fixed it. 

He  _ understood _ . 

She closed the lid of the toilet,  setting her clothes down there. The bathroom wasn't as clean as it could be, probably, but it was better than a gas station, and not just because it had a shower. Hanging the towel over the bar that held the shower curtain, she turned her attention to the guy soap. It claimed to be good enough for both her skin and her hair,  and it smelled - well, at this point, week-old roadkill probably smelled better than she did. She sniffed the opening at the top of the bottle and decided that the strong - if completely indecipherable - scent would do just fine. How was she supposed to judge whether or not the soap smelled like ‘Fresh Energy?’

So she started to peel off the bloody, sweaty,  dirty jumpsuit, wrinkling her nose as it finally hit home just how filthy she'd actually been. Ew. How had anyone tolerated her presence? Well, no more of that. Baths every day, if she was allowed, from now on. It hadn't mattered before - she had more important things to worry about with just staying alive - but now? Now, she stuffed the entire bundle of expired clothing into the little trash bin, where it couldn't do any more harm. Then,  she found Eddie's comb, staring at it. It didn't look like it had seen much use, but he hadn't bought one for her. It felt greedy to ask for one of her own, after everything else he'd bought her, but it was his. Was she allowed to use it? 

Sunny sensed her dismay,  and they shared the idea of words, of language, even though they couldn't yet form any for themself. The meaning was clear enough:  if she had a question, surely it was okay to just ask? 

So she carefully unlocked the door, sticking her head out, and the hand holding the comb. “Eddie?”

“Yeah?” He wasn't looking, so she waved the comb, realizing only after she'd done so that he probably couldn't see behind himself. 

She frowned. “Eddie, may we?” She waved the comb again.

“May you what?” His voice was distracted - whatever he was looking at now had his full attention. 

V used two tendrils to turn his head so he was looking, at least for a moment.  **“Eddie, look.”** V was helpful like that. She smiled at them. 

“My comb? Shit, yeah, you'd need one. Sorry. Go for it.” And that was that. His attention returned to whatever he'd been doing,  as though her request wasn't anything terribly important. 

She withdrew into the bathroom, locking the door once more,  and stared at the comb. It was all too much. He had been too nice,  and she leaned against the door, trying not to cry, because he'd shown her more kindness in one day than she'd known in an entire lifetime. Her heart felt soft,  like melted butter, and she sniffled, hugging herself, and then Sunny was there, wrapping golden tendrils around her entire body in a mimicry of the gesture. 

For a few long minutes,  she let herself weep, stifling the sound of it by long habit. Children should be seen as little as possible, and never, ever heard, that had always been the rule, and while she wasn't really a child anymore, she certainly didn't know how to actually be an adult. Sunny seemed to understand that this release of pressure was something she needed, so they simply did what they could to let it happen, tendrils rolling soft circles against her skin, meaningless, comforting gestures. There was no one watching, and eventually,  the terrible ache of just how awful her life had been before faded, leaving behind a dull emptiness that she could work through. 

And there was work to do. Now that she'd gotten over herself, Sunny returned to their own work, leaving her to climb into the chilly, cheap, porcelain tub more-or-less alone. She debated how to handle the initial few steps,  before settling on a plan. Her hair was the worst of it, really, a tangled, knotted, greasy mass. She turned the water on, fussing with the knobs until she found a temperature just below painfully hot, and submerged her entire head under the tap. Step one was just getting rid of the worst of the grime, really. 

She dug her fingertips into her scalp,  massaging away the weeks of dirt and dead skin and everything else, giving herself a good, thorough rinse. Sunny seemed suddenly intrigued by her actions, and there came a new,  budding sense of awareness that had never been present before.

She didn't think she'd ever been so completely  _ aware _ of every inch of hair on her head, before. The sense of it extended well past her scalp,  a vague tingle extending to the very end of each follicle, even pushing life back into the dead ends. It was important to her that her hair be  _ fixed _ , she realized, dazedly - Sunny was determined to help. The knots began to unwind as she worked at them,  bringing the comb to bear in order to help undo her recent neglect. If they were careful, it didn't even hurt like it should. They worked in patches, moving from one spot to the next, as the water filtering through began to finally run clear. 

Her hair was the one thing in her life that she'd been allowed to find some control over. The worst punishment her parents had ever delivered wasn't the beatings. It wasn't even the starvation, staring hungrily at the padlocked fridge. The worst punishment had been that one summer day when they took Father's razor and sheared her hair off, to remind her of her  _ place _ . After all,  _ they _ controlled what she was allowed. So long as she lived under their roof, she had never defied them again. 

When she finally finished undoing the worst of the mess, only a couple of errant strands of copper still clung to the comb. 

She very nearly began crying again: she'd expected to lose much more. Sending a wash of gratitude to Sunny, she felt the warmth of their pride in return. They'd managed something new,  something even V didn't know yet, and there was a smug satisfaction because Eddie's hair wasn't long enough even if V figured it out.

After all of that,  it was relatively simple to finish actually cleaning her hair,  feeling an odd, noticeable tingle from the roots all the way to the tips. If she focused, she thought she might even be able to move the individual stands like long, clumsy fingers. For now,  she wouldn't think too hard about that. Later, maybe, she'd investigate this new skill and figure out whether or not it could be even more useful than simply sparing herself pain. 

After rinsing her hair a third time,  she figured it was probably clean as it could possibly be, so she moved on. The water had gotten a bit cooler, so she messed with the knob again,  before switching to a proper shower. Sunny helped her scrub the dirt from her skin, but seemed to prefer getting out of her way when she used the soap on the second pass. By the time she was finished,  the water was completely cold. 

It took all of her remaining energy to towel off, wriggle into her new clothes,  and then stumble back out into the living room, crawling onto the couch and returning to the sleep her body so desperately craved. 

This had probably been the best day of her entire life. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much actually _happened_ in this one, but sometimes you just gotta work through the thoughts in your head.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eddie is bad at shopping.

Over the course of the night, V had learned a great deal about human cruelty. They also learned a great deal about human kindness. In Dawn, it seemed, Eddie had found a younger mirror: the girl had suffered the wrath of those who should have been responsible for taking care of her,  just as he had.

V found that the protection of this young host had become a priority to them, as well: she'd become important to Eddie, a chance to be better. He wanted to be better, to never show this child the cruelty that his own father had. This, it seemed, was one of the painful memory-boxes, the ones he stored away in an effort to never face them again. Coiled around their host as he drifted off, V caressed his cheek, idly, admiring the light dusting of fur across his chin. If they could,  if he would allow it, they would take his pain away. But they could not.

Eddie had said that,  painful as they were, those memories were part of him. Having faced the brutality of those stronger than himself, he had a greater resolve to protect the weak.

V had offered to eat his father.

Eddie declined, mumbling something about burned bridges as he finally settled into the beginnings of his slumber.  For tonight, it pleased them merely to watch his mind as it turned over the events of the day. They monitored the way that his natural healing repaired minor damages, and the chemicals filtering through his blood. Could they increase the efficiency of these processes? They'd have to learn more about what each thing was. Perhaps they'd start with this ‘Wikipedia’ - it had served well enough to answer most of their earlier questions.

As V watched, they fell into a kind of meditative trance, feeling the steady rhythm of their beloved's heart pumping blood throughout his body,  into his fingers, back to his heart, out to his toes, back to his heart.

They felt content, smoothing his hair gently,  and let him sleep.

 

* * *

 

The night came and went, and then Eddie was awake. It was Saturday,  which was usually a day for relaxation.

Dawn was still there, a fact that surprised V. Eddie did not find this surprising,  but was pleased, nonetheless. He said that it was because he didn't try to force her to stay as V had suggested, which was completely contradictory.

Humans were contradictory, and Eddie _was_ human, so he would understand better, probably. That didn't make it make sense, but it made it acceptable that V was wrong.

They checked in with Dawn, letting her know they were going out to get a couple more things. Apparently, it was preferable to have one's sleep disturbed than to wake up alone without explanation, and Dawn’s expression - sleepy, but understanding - said that she understood why she'd been awakened.

 **We are not cute, Eddie,** V pointed out, holding onto the image of Dawn covering her mouth as she yawned.   **That is cute. We will never be so cute,  Eddie.**

“Sure, V,” he said with an idle grin,  touching the blue not-a-tooth device. “Whatever you say.” His grin said that he disagreed,  but … was it so bad if _Eddie_ thought they were cute? No, that was okay.

Probably.

Even when they no longer required the convenience of Mrs. Chen's store, they made a point of stopping by every few days to buy something or other - and to remind other predators that she was under their protection.

This was good.

After Anne and Dan, Mrs. Chen was one of the few humans who was fully aware of the fact that they were Venom.

“You still have that parasite, Eddie?”

This had become something of a shared joke between them. Though the word still hurt a little to hear, V understood that she did not mean harm by it.   **“Not a parasite,”** they said, forming Eddie's lips into the drooping expression that he referred to as ‘pouting.’

“Yeah, yeah.” She waved it off, peering closely at them. “You making sure he eats the vegetables like I said? Not just potatoes!”

Eddie put on his charm like a cloak, all smiles as he swept through the store, simultaneously checking for anything that might be amiss and everything he intended to buy for the day. “You know it! I'm gonna need even more of them now, Mrs. Chen, my niece is coming to live with me.” He found a particularly durable comb with a large amount of space between the bristles, holding it up for inspection.

Apparently, with great quantities of hair came even greater difficulty managing it all.

Eddie barely had to do anything to his hair, but as they tucked a smallish blanket around the girl, Sunny had shown V just how much work had gone into fixing the mess adorning Dawn's head. They couldn’t fully make sense of the purpose of having so much - Eddie's body temperature was easy enough to regulate despite having very little of it - but Sunny was adamant that it was an important effort,  even if it was an exhausting one. It made Dawn happy, and that was enough.

The sentiment had felt odd, coming from another Klyntar, even one who had been spawned from their own essence. They had spent much of the night considering that: they were shaping their offspring into another ‘loser,’ a symbiote who cherished their host. The others wouldn't - maybe couldn't - fathom that. It took several hours for V to decide that they were glad that their offspring was becoming more like them. Now that they'd shared a proper, _mutual_ bond with Eddie, they were certain that this was the best option by far.

Eddie, for his part, had selected a package of several stretchy bands known as hair ties. He found himself inspecting a bottle of chemicals that advertised itself as ‘conditioner,’ when Mrs. Chen finally decided what kind of response to give his announcement.

“No,” she said,  disbelief in her tone, having abandoned the register in order to walk over,  staring up at him with her arms folded in an expression of defiance. “Eddie - you are a mess. One day you come in so drunk you can't see straight, a couple of days later you have a parasite that eats ‘bad guys.’ You never eat enough even when you're eating whole people - Eddie, you are the worst person to care for a child. You can't even take care of you.”

He put the conditioner down,  and a surge of pain washed through him.

V had learned to distinguish emotional pain from physical: this was the former, but he was remembering the latter. V wrapped their tendrils around his torso,  hidden under the shirt, and then squeezed gently in the way humans liked. **We are here, Eddie.** Touch was important to humans,  and a hug could act as a powerful counter to negative emotion. **We are Venom, you are here. All is well, now, Eddie.**

In the memory,  there was a man who looked similar to Eddie, but older: Eddie's father.   _‘No son of mine - ’_

And then, Eddie put the memory away. He did that a lot, with the ones that hurt. “... No, Mrs. Chen, I'm really not. Her parents - _they_ were the worst.”

Here, the memory was of Dawn thanking him for striking her wrist,  the pain of the action welcomed because, Eddie believed, she had been made to experience the same kind of pain he had once endured.   **_Never again,_ ** they thought in unison.

“Besides!” He brightened with a cheery, but very fake, smile. “The people who put a ‘parasite’ in me couldn't stop at just one, so this kid needs me, you know? _Me_ , not somebody well-meaning but edible.”

“She is not your niece, is she,  Eddie.”

Not for the first time, V had commentary for the way the tiny woman spoke to Eddie. **We like Mrs. Chen. She is smart.**  Maybe that was a commonality to human females - in exchange for lower body mass, they had greater intelligence?

It was as plausible a theory as any. Once again, they wished they had spent more time actually learning about their other hosts, but starvation had rendered them unable to even form a coherent thought of their own.

By the time Eddie had rescued them, they had been dying,  too.

“She's not my niece, no,” he agreed. “But she needs help, and I'm the only one who can.”

Mrs. Chen sighed, shaking her head. “Get the vegetables, Eddie.”

V had asked about the way Mrs. Chen formed her words,  once. She talked in a slightly stilted manner, and her voice was less monotonous than most they'd met.

Apparently in an effort to further complicate communication, humanity had developed multiple spoken languages. Chinese, the language she learned first, was exceptionally popular, and Mrs. Chen had then gone on to learn English, another popular choice, as a second language. This meant she had an accent, because Chinese was spoken differently.

**Do we have an accent, Eddie?**

He tapped the bluetooth, then looked over to where Mrs. Chen had resumed her place behind the register.  “I dunno, what do you think? Does V have an accent, Mrs. Chen?”

“Sure, accent is _asshole_.” This startled a laugh out of Eddie.

V quickly formed their own mouth to protest:   **“We have never been this mean to you!”**

“ _Whiny_ asshole,” she said, but she was pretending not to smile.

They pretended to pout again. It worked better with Eddie's mouth: theirs had too many teeth to look sufficiently pathetic.

“Put your head back up Eddie's ass before someone sees you, asshole,” Mrs. Chen said,  and if it were anyone else, V might have asked to eat her. Human communication was full of nuances, most of them in their expressions, tones,  and gestures. The words were rude, but the tone, the way her lips were curled, and the way she held her body even, all served to reassure V that she meant affection by it.

Also, because if she truly were hostile to them,  V would have eaten her, and both of them knew that as simple fact. Venom existed now to protect Eddie.

Instead of eating her, V exaggerated the ‘pout,’ drooping their entire head along elongated,  spindly tendrils to give the impression of weakness. **“She wounds us, Eddie.”**

“Yeah, but she has a point, V. C'mon, in you go.” He reached up, curling his fingers against V's cheek, and V purred, drawing themself into his body.

They ran a playful shiver of sensation south, sending a rush of intent, hot and hungry,  as though they intended to follow her instructions to the letter. Eddie stiffened, clenching himself tight, and blushed. They knew it was not okay to do such things in public, but it was fun to tease Eddie with the idea they _might_.

Mrs. Chen made a noise of disgust. “I get a tapeworm and act like that, you shoot me dead,  Eddie. You have it bad.”

“Not a chance,  Mrs. Chen,” Eddie grinned,  depositing his purchases on the counter and pulling out his wallet. “Not a chance.”

 

* * *

 

**Why are we only using all of this money now,  Eddie?**

The LIFE settlement had been something of a point of contention between them, when they'd first won it. V had wanted to use it to solve all of the stupid money problems they had,  but Eddie had said no, and because Eddie was human and money was a human thing, it was his problem. But the money in their account never went away, it just sat there, unused, until now. Now, it was fine to buy anything and everything Dawn might need, and they still didn't understand what made this different.

Eddie sighed,  adjusting the weight of the groceries they'd purchased. True to his word,  he'd bought a variety of packaged foods, all of which supposedly contained some kind of vegetables. He'd also grabbed a set of hair ties,  all of them moderately thick, and another toothbrush since that had _been_ on Anne’s list. Eddie just wasn't very skilled at following lists.

Even if V had been more like Riot - and they weren't, they never had been - it would be important to maintain their host's health. Because V cared about Eddie, it became _imperative_ that they help him select the kinds of foods that would keep him healthy. It pleased them to see him in good health, even ignoring the extra utility gained from a host who was, himself, strong and healthy enough to survive independently.

Eddie didn’t need them, exactly - he _wanted_ them. V could technically subsist by drifting from host to host, using them up and discarding them when they were no longer useful - but they didn’t want to do that, they wanted _Eddie_. This shared wanting was important, maybe more important than the mutual need they’d had when they first bonded. Eddie called it love, and when he thought of them, his mind lit up with a warmth that they happily bathed in.

So V was pretty sure they loved each other,  and therefore, they needed to look after each other’s needs. Food was expensive, though, and so even _basic_ needs became a stupid money problem that they could have solved months ago if Eddie would have just _let_ them - so why was he only letting them use that resource now?

Eddie sighed, softly. “It's like this, V. My job isn't just something I picked up to make money,  you know?” He shook his head. “Learning the truth - making sure everybody knows the truth? That has always been kind of important to me, and it feels like taking their money is like letting them pay me for staying quiet about all the people they killed.” _Like his mother had stayed quiet …_

 **The people they killed … like Maria?** Eddie had told V that her death wasn't their fault, but V still didn't really believe him. They'd tried to keep her alive, they had. But there was never _enough_ food,  never the _right_ food. So they ended up wasting away in a dying body, until Eddie came to save them. The hosts before Maria? V hadn't even managed to learn their names.

They still felt bad, like maybe they could have prevented it somehow.

That, in Riot’s estimation, was why they were a loser. Riot had always considered their hosts expendable. And V … didn't.

“... Yeah,  V. The people they killed,  like Maria and everybody else they marched into a cell to die so they could learn about you all.” He sighed, softly, looking up at the stars. V got the sense that he was looking for their home, despite knowing that he wouldn't find it. “Like Dr. Skirth and the others who came with you,  who died starving.”

Home was with Eddie, now. It had been since before the launch. V couldn't imagine that would ever change.

He had to set some of the bags of groceries down,  in order to work the front door of the apartment building open. “So, Dawn was gonna be one of those people, the ones who died because the quote-unquote ‘scientists’ didn't bother to ask their subjects what they needed. She got loose, she's with us - and, well … ” He checked, idly, to see if they’d received any mail, a process that involved another intricate dance of dropping the bags, followed by using their key on the mailbox, opening it up, and investigating the letters addressed to him. Two, he stuffed into their jacket, and the rest were junk mail, advertisements for services they either didn’t need or couldn’t afford. He tossed the ads into a nearby trash receptacle that had been filled with similar items belonging to their neighbors.   
  
That done, he gathered his bags and rounded the corner to their hallway. All of this would have been easier if Eddie let them help, but he was always so concerned about whether or not other people would see that the best they were allowed to do was make sure the inner pocket of the jacket didn’t tip open and drop his mail on the ground. They wanted to _help_.

He seemed to only then remember the point he'd been coming to in the first place. “I dunno, it feels kind of poetic to use their bribe money to make things better for - Dawn?”

There, in the hall between their apartment and the one across the way, their neighbor had cornered the small girl against the wall.

They'd never liked that man. His smiles were always lies.

**NOW can we eat him,  Eddie?**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They're still a bit hung up on that word. It's because they're _not_ a parasite that they're a 'loser': parasites give nothing back.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a creep gets eaten.

It was the creep from next door. 

Honestly, Eddie should have been more prepared for something like this happening - he'd never really liked that guy. He'd always seemed slimy,  and Eddie wasn't entirely sure where his journalistic instincts or V’s enhanced senses that had picked up the way every smile seemed just a little bit off. They thought of him as a predator - and they’d been right.

_ Damn it. _

The man was rather tall, with dark hair, pasty white skin, and brown eyes. He was  _ also _ rather clearly invading Dawn's personal space, and she appeared to be failing to escape. 

“Dawn, is this guy bothering you?” Eddie dropped the bags, almost praying for the opportunity to justify the use of force. Hell, even if it didn’t come to that of necessity, he still had the urge to make sure this sack of shit never hurt anyone again. 

He reached for V, having every intention of sinking into Venom, letting them deal with this problem like they did best. V acknowledged the contact, nearly vibrating with their shared rage,  but sent a curious signal back:  **Wait.**

Dawn had flattened against the wall,  looking like she was trying to shrink further into her own skin. The creep had boxed her in, using his greater height to intimidate her until she cowered from him, thin gloves of gold forming sharp talons just outside of the man's line of sight.  The creep was too close to see the danger he'd invited, looking directly at her face as she turned away, panic in her eyes. When she saw Eddie, though, her expression changed, ever so slightly, her mind clearly calculating his words. 

Finally, Eddie realized what V was waiting for, and - yeah,  Eddie could agree with that. Eddie  _ did _ agree - learning to stand up for herself was vital. She just needed a little push, a reminder that it was okay. “Did he hurt you?”

The man pulled back slightly,  turning toward him - and giving her the opening she needed.

Gold swarmed up over her body,  and for the second time, Eddie got to watch the process from the outside. The younger symbiote seemed content to make much less pronounced changes - unlike Eddie or Drake, Dawn didn't grow very much at all. Even Anne had been taller.

In the space of the creep's first angry inhale, her hair seemed to come alive, twisting together to form strong ropes that shot forward,  seizing his arms, his torso, his legs. Her ‘mask’ was smaller, appropriate to her tiny frame, and yet her fangs were just as sharp, the devastating strength just as deadly. Her jaw seemed to unhinge like a snake’s, wide and menacing, but with far too many teeth. Her hair twisted, dragging the man off balance. 

He only managed a startled yelp before the first sickening crunch tore through flesh and bone, leaving behind a dangling lower jaw.

Pride surged through V, and Eddie watched on with a mix of amazement and muted horror. 

Scream - the name seemed obvious, given her unusual gift - wasn’t anywhere near as large as Venom tended to be. She pulled her enemy down to her level, crunching what remained of his skull with powerful jaws. Blood sprayed all over the hallway, the headless body held upright by thick, symbiote-reinforced cords of hair. She smiled,  blood dripping from the rows of needle-sharp teeth, as she tore another large chunk out of his torso, feasting greedily, even plucking some of his organs. Her swirling white eye-splotches thinned, appearing to close in pleasure as she shredded her prey with her claws.

It wasn't anywhere near as quick as V made it, though he had to assume it had been relatively painless, since without a brain, the man would be hard pressed to feel anything at all.

**Our offspring,** V said, humming with pride. 

After she ate her fill, the man's remaining ribs jutting from the ruin of his torso, her demeanor shifted. She was no longer a predator, glorying in the thrill of a kill: she was a young,  scared teenager, protected only by an even younger symbiote. Splotches of red formed around her shoulders in a crude, much larger imitation of her own freckles, streaks of crimson showing in her hair. She stepped back,  dropping the corpse. Looking to Eddie, something not entirely unlike pain written on her mask, she quickly ducked inside of his apartment. His door closed in a swirl of golden tendrils, leaving him to inspect the truly spectacular spread of viscera across the hallway.

“You mind cleaning up  _ your  _ offspring's mess, V?” He knelt, fishing out the man's wallet as he called on V again. 

Blackness engulfed him,  warm and comforting, as V purred their response.  **“Of course, Eddie.”**

 

* * *

The next thing Eddie was aware of,  they were carefully locking the door behind him. Eddie didn't mind as much, in the heat of the moment,  the thrill of the hunt, but mopping up the remains of Dawn's meal was …

**Carrion. But necessary.**

“Yeah. Thanks, love. Dawn?” Eddie called the girl’s name,  asking for her to reveal herself, even though their shared senses showed the glow of her presence nearby. A rush of motion caught his attention,  a swirl of golden tendrils reaching out from the slightly-open bathroom door, beckoning in exaggerated fashion. He followed the motion, but paused in the doorway. “You mind if we come in?”

**“... Please.”**

There was an almost melodic note to the shared voice, and a sort of echo followed the initial word. Was that how they sounded when they spoke as Venom? No - no, he remembered Anne's voice, how it had been warped, almost unrecognizable, but not like this. This was different.

V stirred, uneasy, sensing the potential danger in their offspring's voice - remembering what Dawn could do with it even before she'd been sheathed in the relative safety of her symbiote.

“How are you holding up?” Eddie kept his voice low and even, carefully picking his way inside. The tendrils of gold had formed a kind of net, wrapping around the entire room, protective. As he passed the threshold, they carefully slid it shut, thick bands of crimson forming into a cross over the door to bar it, physically, while more gold moved in to tease the lock back into place.

Eddie suppressed any fear that brought him. He could pretend that he wasn't even a little bit alarmed by all of this - for her sake. Of course she'd need to feel  _ safe _ after all that, but what if their presence was deemed unsafe? What if she screamed again? What if - what if.

There was a momentary shiver,  a rolling through the cascade of tendrils,  and a sense, however dim, of internal conflict.

Then, there came a flood of words, cacophonous in the small bathroom.

**“Ate him** (we ate him) **-** ** _GOOD_** **, he deserves - he didn't hurt us** (he planned to hurt us) **_DIDN'T ASK_** (no one asks) **.”**

Eddie's teeth ached - the sharpest of the notes skimmed just under the lethal range, while the softest was barely above a whisper. Her voice seemed to come from every direction at once,  sometimes seeming to be over his shoulder, behind him, or in front. The mirror shuddered precariously over his sink, a single stripe of gold lashed across its face.

If it wasn't actually starting to hurt,  he was pretty sure V would be impressed.

Eddie slowly pressed forward, gently tugging the shower curtain aside and coming to kneel next to the tub. Dawn was sitting behind it, her arms tight around her knees, the cascade of hair-like tentacles swarming in a halo from her head. “He never did anything where I could see,” Eddie said, ignoring for now the fact he was definitely going to need some painkillers after this, “But you know what? We always had a hunch he needed to be eaten. We just never got around to proving it.”

**“... not mad?** ( _ They _ would be) **.”** She tilted her head up, the eye-spots swirling like pearlescent smoke.

Eddie shook his head, smiling softly, forcing himself to be as reassuring as he could manage. “You did good, for yourself, for everybody. You said he was gonna hurt you?”

**“** ** _HE SAID_** (unless we were good to him) **we aren't good** (never good) **-”** She shuddered, burying her face in her arms again. Had her mouth actually moved at all?

Eddie shook his head.  “You're plenty good. You need a good name, for when you're like this,” he reached for the first distraction he could come across. “Something - strong, stronger than either of you apart.  What do you think of Scream?”

**“Scream?** (Scream?) **_SCREAM!”_** An ominous cracking came from somewhere behind them as the tendrils seemed to vibrate with the echoes of the overlying voices.

The sharper note, jubilant,  less controlled - that seemed like it might be Sunny. It had the same painful enthusiasm of a human child.  The softer one, the echo, that was definitely Dawn's voice, while the in-between …?

**Scream,** V supplied.  **Together.** They sounded like they were holding up about as well as Eddie was.

Eddie managed to speak through the ache that had spread through his skull like wildfire: “It suits you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone remember Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem? Xel'lotath for best Ancient. >)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the silence deafens.

It took surprisingly little effort to coax Sunny back inside of her skin, once V showed them how. It was impossible to disguise the low ache that their shared voice had caused, but V was … very firm. Mistakes made while learning control were still just that - mistakes. 

It was hard to argue the point when their minds were joined so. V didn't,  _ couldn't _ blame any part of ‘Scream’ for the pain they had caused. More than that, they were  _ proud _ .  

If V was proud of what they'd done, and Eddie had even thought they had done well …

Then, it stood to reason, they  _ had _ done well? It seemed strange, the idea that eating a person alive was maybe a good thing,  maybe the right thing, but Eddie made it clear that if Scream had not done it, Venom - which was them, two parts of one whole, Venom - would. As they worked together to gently collect the lower half of the mirror -  _ it was a mistake, it was okay to make mistakes _ \- he shared the memory of seeing her fear, the protective rage they'd stomped down -

Because of her, because she needed to know that it was okay, maybe necessary even, to protect herself. They would have stepped up, if she had needed their help,  but she didn't.

**Proud of you - both.**

_ Thanks, Dad. _

The ‘words’ took everyone in the room by surprise, and there was a moment of silence as they all sort of came to terms with what had been said, the truth in it despite how little time they'd actually shared together so far. 

**_TWO DAD._ ** Sunny was starting to wrap themself around the idea of language, and was making a point of studying the words Dawn knew.  She got the sense that they were trying to organize things in that department, and wished them luck in that regard: she'd never managed it. 

Their exclamation brought a laugh to her heart, one that she covered her mouth to try and hide. Eddie didn't bother, laughing audibly, and then V’s chuckle rumbled through the link, along with a faintly possessive note, directed at Eddie -  _ two dads _ , an extra affirmation of what they were as Venom. Partners. 

Sunny ‘watched’ curiously, as they slowly drew her hair back down to a more manageable length.  Finally, they withdrew the link entirely - they were very, very tired and needed to rest.

And then she was  _ alone _ , for the first time since their bonding. Not completely, not  _ truly _ , but their ‘voice’ fell silent, and a faint, distant drone rose to take its place. She shook her head, trying to clear it, to ignore the distant murmur. It had been a while since she'd seen Them last. It made a kind of sense that They would come to seek her after she'd been gone so long.    
  
“- want to do anything, today, Dawn?” She looked up at him, at them, at Venom, trying to comprehend what he - what Eddie - had been saying. 

That question didn’t really make sense to her, even ignoring the faint murmurs -  _ worthless  _ \- that teased at a conversation she couldn’t quite hear, voices just outside the window. “... What?”

“I guess - what kinds of things do you enjoy?” He seemed to realize, however belatedly, that his question wasn’t one she’d ever really been asked before, and yet it still didn’t make sense on the rephrasing. “Like … TV? Do you like watching TV?”

Oh, she remembered TV. She hadn’t been allowed it, exactly, but sometimes she’d snuck into the living room when Mother and Father were asleep. The stories hadn’t always made sense without sound to accompany them, but she had to silence it so that they never knew. Then,  she figured out how to make the TV write the words being spoken - that had been the best. 

Then,  Father had caught her,  and he told Mother what she had done. That had  _ not _ been the best. 

She gave Eddie a slow, thoughtful nod, and glanced to the device. It sat across from the couch, idle and silent. “... May we?” She looked back up to Eddie, feeling hope stirring in her chest again. For once,  she thought, just maybe, it was okay to let herself hope. 

…  _ murderer _ …    
  
“Yeah, sure, let me set something up for you.”    
  
There was a stand under the TV that could be opened, and he dug about inside of it, looking for something he deemed acceptable to watch.   
  
It was important that she wait, patiently, in silence. Those were the rules, when she was required to wait. But surely  _ Eddie _ wouldn't punish her for looking around a bit - he was better than that. He was amazing. They both were - V was focused inside of his skull, doing something important. She couldn't quite guess at what, exactly,  but she figured it had to do with the headache. 

If the Watchers were coming,  she should guard against them. She glanced over at the door - oh, it was closed. Firmly, she found, as she checked it, and the deadbolt was locked too. She hadn’t expected that, but it felt - good? The blinds hadn’t been opened, the Watchers couldn’t see, and she reassured herself of that fact by returning to the window and checking the blinds.   
  
“Ah - you’ll like this, I think.” There was a grin in Eddie’s tone, and he held up the … thing. It had a black-ish box, a field of stars with a blue ball - a planet - in the top-right corner, and several faces across the bottom. At the top of the box, there was an ugly, bulbous, gray thing that she sort of assumed was supposed to be a spaceship. The LIFE people had talked about those, kind of a lot, but this one wasn't one she recognized from any of the shows she'd seen. 

Not for the first time,  she wondered if they'd really gone all the way to space. She supposed they must have; Sunny and V were both far too different from anything on Earth. How had they collected the symbiotes, even? If even she had been able to - she shoved the details back,  for now - if even she had been able to kill, with a symbiote version of a baby, then she could barely imagine what Venom was like. Maybe the symbiotes just hadn't been inside hosts - that seemed likely. 

“V, you want to watch, too?” The box migrated away from her field of view before she realized that the curling slashes off gold actually spelled a word, and then she realized that she hadn't managed to read the word. It was okay,  though, she liked stories that had spaceships in them. 

…  _ space monster _ ...   
  
Dawn settled herself on the couch, and waited for Eddie to set up the device. She shifted her weight,  uneasily, trying to ignore the conversation that seemed to be ongoing just outside the window.    
  
\-  _ won’t last. He’ll abandon her, you’ll see. She'll ruin it,  she'll push him too far, or she'll  _ **_stab him in his sleep_ ** _ - _   
  
She forced herself to ignore those voices. They always said the same sort of things, always making the worst possible guesses. They spoke about her, not to her, and she hated, hated,  _ hated _ them. They’d bet that Eddie wouldn’t let her inside - the meaner of the Watchers, the Eye Unstuck From Time,  he’d said that Eddie would slam the door in her face. They’d been wrong then, and they would continue to be wrong.   
  
She had to believe that.   
  
The woman, the insidious one, the soft voice that always suggested  _ betrayal, _ that voice sounded for just a moment like it was over her shoulder.  _ Perhaps he’s just waiting for when she sleeps. _   
  
She shuddered. She  _ hated _ the Watchers, hated the way they knew every little thing she ever did, hated the way they always assumed the worst. Sunny stirred, slightly, and she bit her lip, because Sunny needed their rest but the Watchers wouldn’t go  _ away. _   
  
They sensed her fear, and then - they  _ did _ something, surging inside of her,  sharing their own senses. Much of it was similar, though they saw more, heard more, and some of it was dizzyingly alien, impossible to interpret. Colors swirled, a dazzling show in hues that her mind could not fathom, while even the tiniest, chittering rats could be heard as they nibbled on the walls, expanding their dens. 

_ Heat _ and  _ cold  _ were also much more pronounced, and not limited to her own skin - she could sense the heat radiating from Eddie, the warmth pulsing from the windows. Somewhere, a rattling fan pushed lukewarm air through the building in a vague effort to cool it. The space behind the refrigerator was almost as warm as Eddie was, but the shape was wrong. Outside,  the sun beat against the bricks, superheating the asphalt, but there were no human shapes beyond the walls of Eddie's apartment, not at this hour, not even the neighbor's. Only a lingering pool of warmth remained outside Eddie's door.

The Watchers, though - what?   
  
Oh. Right.  _ Other _ people couldn’t perceive them, because  _ she _ was  _ bad _ and  _ wrong _ and  _ crazy. _ Sunny was inside of her,  but they were still separate, they were someone else, and her senses couldn't be  _ trusted _ . They stirred again, agitated, as self-loathing settled over her like a shroud.    
  
“Hey - hey, are you okay?”   
  
A gentle touch on her shoulder drew her attention back to the world around her. “ _ Crazy, _ ” she mumbled, and there were tears forming in her eyes, she was  _ weak, _ tears were  _ weakness _ \- she couldn’t let him  _ see _ \-    
  
“... Yeah, well, so’s everybody.” Eddie sat down beside her. His voice sounded tired,  _ so _ tired, for just a moment. “You tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine?”    
  
A surge of movement startled a small yelp from her, the darkness swirling out between them, engulfing them both in warmth. V had formed themself into an oversized blanket that squeezed, tightly, the weight reassuring. At first, she almost thought to struggle,  but the sense of familiarity reassured her that it  _ was _ V - it was a hug, kind of, she'd seen hugs on television,  and she had never before realized how badly she needed one. She curled into the warmth of the enveloping blanket, and a thick pair of tendrils crossed her body, adding a layer to the full-body embrace. 

She glanced over to Eddie, to find him similarly encased, and she felt the sharp urge to laugh and keep laughing because the blanket had a head and teeth and swirling, pearlescent eyes, a head formed just above Eddie's. Eddie and his murder-happy blanket were two of the only things she was absolutely certain was real in the room - she was certain Sunny existed,  but it sometimes became hard to verify that  _ she _ was real. 

She made an effort to wriggle within the blanket,  and V made room for her, allowing her to lean against Eddie's side so that she could watch the slowly cycling introductory sequence. Everything seemed kind of antiquated for a movie about space. 

As she got comfortable in V's embrace,  the solid weight of it helping to ground her  _ here _ and  _ now _ ,  Sunny receded, resuming their slumber. 

All was well.

“Okay,” she said softly,  voice feeling heavy. “Won't like it.”

Eddie shook his head slightly.  “If you don't want to, that's fine. I'm not going to make you talk about anything you don't want.”

“... I want.” She had to know if he'd reject her,  if the Watchers were right, or if she could trust him with this. “I - see. Hear. Things only for me.  Watchers.” She shuddered, and the tendrils about her waist squeezed in a hug. “Not - real things, can't - can't touch - ” Father had been so angry,  but she remembered the paralytic fear when Father dragged her through the swirling shadow, the maw of fangs snapping at her as she was forced to move through because the Watchers were hostile and she threw up on him in terror and -   
  
“Hey. Hey, you’re here, with us, right?” Eddie gently jostled her shoulder, as an extra pair of thick, tentacle-like ‘arms’ wrapped around her shoulders and waist, squeezing almost too-tightly.   
  
She hadn’t been, but now she was. She nodded.   
  
“I take it that your, ah, family didn’t take that well.”    
  
A shudder ran through her entire body, and she nodded agreement with his assessment.

“That would be why home isn’t safe?” Eddie’s own arm slid in between the thick, comforting tendrils, wrapping around her as she nodded again. “You’re safe here, okay? With us. Why’d you go out, anyway? We’re not gonna be mad,  _ promise. _ ”

She bit her lip. “Was - explore. Find - escapes, hiding places.”   
  
**“Scouting.”** There was a rumble of approval from the blanket around them, and she smiled, hesitantly, squeezing one of her own arms around one of the over-warm tendrils that crossed her body, nodding.  **“Good. It is important to know your hunting ground.”**   
  
Eddie groaned softly, shaking his head. “We’re not hunting here, V.” He looked to Dawn. “You’re not  _ hunting _ here, okay? We don’t need that kind of attention, and the landlord won’t tolerate it.”   
  
“.... But we ate him.” There was a  _ pause, _ a moment where she realized her words hadn’t come out as she meant. “The - man. Bad man.”   
  
He huffed a loud sigh, and V’s entire form rumbled with their laughter. **“Also important to know your** **_home,_ ** **to protect it.”** Their voice was emanating from somewhere above her, and she got the vague sense that their head was still perched on top of Eddie's.   
  
“Yeah. That. It’s fine you protected yourself, but - if you want to  _ hunt, _ we don’t do that  _ here. _ Okay?” Eddie tipped her head back to make sure she was looking at his face.   
  
She blinked, tilting her head to the side. “Hunt?”   
  
“Yeah. V needs a  _ lot _ of protein, and meat isn’t super cheap. Besides, they’re  _ predators, _ it’s good for them.” Eddie shrugged slightly. “We go diving every so often. You know the harbor seals?”   
  
She shook her head, very, very slowly. She knew there was a  _ harbor, _ in theory, but she truthfully hadn’t seen very much of the city. “Well, there are seals in the harbor, loads of them, and we go hunting sometimes.”   
  
That seemed like a weird idea, and yet - it could be fun? It sounded fun?   
  
“Can we?”   
  
There was another pause, an uncertain, wary pause, and she had said something  _ wrong, _ something bad - she began to tremble, not meaning to, but unable to stop herself.   
  
Both Eddie’s arm and V’s tendrils wrapped tight around her, a fierce, protective hug.  **“We can do whatever we want,”** they said, together.   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of my friends from Cali sent me a picture of the harbor seals and my first thought was genuinely that V would see it as an all-you-can-catch buffet. They're just _everywhere_.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which cannibalism probably shouldn't be the first answer.

Before long at all, Dawn peeled herself from the protective cocoon that V had woven around her, mumbling a simple,  “Hungry.”

Eddie paused the scene on the picture of a human garbed in a protective outer shell, a spacesuit,  waiting for her return. 

His mind was rolling - he'd forgotten a good many of the things that were shown in the picture, and now he was torn. Eddie was concerned that she might become upset, but he knew that removing the entertainment might be cruel,  especially if he couldn't explain why. 

**Do you believe she will be afraid?** They were still repairing the low-level damage that had occurred due to the brief bursts where Scream's voice had just reached the lethal range.   **We would avoid a repeat of the parking garage.**

Eddie rolled the contents of the series over in his head,  deciding slowly that no, it was probably unlikely to cause that kind of fear. Probably. 

His concern was partly the sex thing - humans always got worked up over the sex thing. 

_ No, V, it's kind of specifically because of what that creep wanted from her, _ he explained with a brief sigh.

They paused, rolling over Eddie's thoughts, trying to comprehend - and when they did understand …

_ Yeah, V, it's a shit thing to do, especially since she looks … _ Eddie glanced over at the girl.  Her tongue was stuck slightly out of the corner of her mouth as she worked the TV dinner open. It was slow going, apparently, and she summoned a golden claw in apparent frustration, slicing through the offending packaging with exacting precision. 

They watched, curious - that didn't seem - had Sunny done that? They had thought their offspring dormant. Yes, the younger Klyntar’s consciousness had resumed resting, conserving energy and tending to only the most basic autonomous processes.  Dawn had done that, using a bit of the symbiote's essence, a feat that had seemed impossible before. Eddie had never done anything like that, but then, he'd never really tried. 

Had he? 

Was it really any different than when V used Eddie's body for their own purposes?

“Hey, kid. How old actually are you?” 

She looked up, flame swirling in the white of her eyes until the claw retracted under her skin. There was a long pause as she tried to piece together the answer,  before shrugging.

Eddie was unsatisfied with this. “Do you remember your birthday?”

Dawn rattled off a series of numbers that apparently meant something to Eddie. He performed a quick calculation, one requiring little effort.  “Nineteen,” he said, as much for her benefit as his own. She shrugged, as though content to accept his answer. 

That was old enough,  legally speaking, to watch anything the show might present.  There were ratings, but Eddie didn't remember exactly and the box was all the way over there. Besides, they didn't much care about the legality of the thing so much as whether or not it would hurt their children to be exposed. 

_ Their children. _

It wasn't really a conscious decision to take responsibility for the host, but it was clear that she was remarkably compatible with their own, true offspring. Whatever the LIFE Foundation had done to them, their spawn still read more-or-less like a true Klyntar. Their unique talents weren't even entirely impossible to explain - often, the genetic advantages of a previous host  _ remained _ advantageous upon taking a new host. Their species could, and often did, learn to emulate the talents of a particularly unusual specimen,  carrying those gifts to all future hosts. They remembered that, now. Riot hadn't always been able to manifest such precise weapons, for example. 

Humans were also incredibly skilled vocal mimics.  If Sunny had any memory of a previous host, they would have simply written it off as adaptation in action,  as well as an especially unique host. Dawn had said that she could not create such sounds naturally, and she was, genuinely,  Sunny's first host. 

_ What about tampering,  V? _

Perhaps V hadn’t been as guarded as they thought; Eddie rarely gave any sign he could follow their internal musings. He had been watching Dawn as she rocked back and forth, resting all of her weight first on her heels, then rolling forward to balance on her toes,  then back to her heels. She was still skittish, overly alert as she waited for the microwave, looking everywhere but the heating food. 

**It is not impossible,**  they agreed.  **Dawn has little concept of how long she was there,  and Sunny has little concept of time.**

_ She said they could do it after bonding, V, _ Eddie said, trying not to laugh when the girl visibly startled at the sound of the microwave’s timer chiming.  _ Do you think they did whatever they did to just Sunny? _

The girl summoned her claws again,  this time sheathing her entire right hand in gold. Carefully, she poked at the noodle dish with the tip of her own claw - and hissed, her hairs puffing up,  spreading around her head in an almost defensive pattern. Eddie hadn’t needed to tell V that her hair was not the norm for a female of his species: Anne couldn't do anything like that, but more importantly,  Sunny had shown them how they'd done it. 

**It seems reasonable,** they replied after a moment's thought.  **That may be part of why it was - important - to retain at least one of the original … samples.** If they had tampered with a symbiote, there was really no telling what all it could be capable of - or what new vulnerabilities it might have. V wasn't just the only mature Klyntar left on Earth - they were likely the only  _ unaltered _ one, as well.

Dawn retracted her claws, suckling on her fingertip in an effort to dull the pain. Her left hand reached out, snagging a fork from the rack where they left their dishes to dry. She used the fork to rearrange the sauce over the noodles, several long strands of reddish-gold hair extending from the curly mass to stabilize the dish, several more holding the instructions at eye level. She mouthed the words as she read them, seeming deeply focused on the task at hand. That done,  she put the dish back into the microwave and set it to heat for the remaining time. 

“We've got some potholders there,” Eddie pointed to the large, eye-searing mittens dangling from the hook. Dawn eyed the mittens with an expression of distrust. 

She poked at the mittens, eyes narrowed. “Poison comes in colors like that,” she murmured,  speaking softly enough they might not have heard, if they'd been human. “In nature, when - in animals who do not want eaten, they make themselves poison and color their skins like this so that you can know that they are not food,  before you eat them and die.” Another gentle poke, and the mittens began swaying on the hook. Apparently content that she wasn't going to fall over dead, she began to play with them, passing the time until the next sharp ding startled her.

**_Cute,_ ** they agreed, as she worked to calm herself, opening the door. 

She reached toward the steam that escaped the small device,  then flinched, reluctantly reaching for a potholder and removing the flimsy, reinforced paper tray. She held it away from her face, steam billowing off the noodles.

“Hot-hot-hot-hot - ” She set her food down on the table and promptly returned the pink potholder to its hook. “... Eddie?” She looked up,  seeming to only then realize that they'd been watching her antics. “Um.”

He smiled. It was very important to him, that he show Dawn he was not upset, never upset. Anger always led to pain,  and until she was comfortable with them, Eddie had decided it was important she know at a glance she was safe. Eddie understood humans, so V accepted that this was, in fact, important. 

“What do you need?”

She did the thing with her lip, teeth worrying at it. The split was gone - Sunny was making good headway on their repairs. “One-only, the chair. Is yours.” She pointed at the single dining chair, and Eddie nudged V. They unfolded from their position, settling within his skin before shifting around, making themself into a necklace, of sorts. 

“Nah, we got this.” He walked across to the comfortable desk chair - one of the few concessions he'd made with the LIFE funds, as his job made him sit for long hours. Spinning it around, he pushed it so that it was sitting next to the table,  then sat in it. “Which means that one is for you.”

Dawn looked at the dining chair, then back to the well-cushioned desk chair, then back to the dining chair,  before nodding. She sat very tentatively on the seat, glancing to Eddie to appraise his expression. 

Eddie had noted that well before V had,  but then, he was human. Humans displayed many emotions prominently on their faces,  and nearly every time she'd taken any action at all, Dawn took a moment to check  _ that he wasn't angry _ . 

**“... do you want us to eat your parents?”**

She startled again,  and Eddie groaned, doing the thing where he covered his face with his hand. “You don't just come out of nowhere with that - ”

**“Why not? If they hurt her, they are bad people! The kind of bad we eat!”** It was that simple! 

Eddie focused his attention on Dawn's face, the blank, short of shocked expression written there. “That isn't our call, V. Trust me on this.”

Dawn had frozen, the first forkful of noodles halfway to her mouth. Her eyes flicked to Eddie, then to V, then she ducked, hiding her face behind a curtain of copper curls,  the gold no longer showing anywhere on her head.

Slowly, deliberately, she peeked up at them again, her eyes barely visible through the reddish hair. “Can't - no - too much. Please?” She worried her lower lip,  and moisture gathered once again. “Is - they hurt. Yes. Much. That is a thing that they did do, again and again and over and over, but they are there and we are here and they are  _ there, _ and that is enough. Enough. Please?”

Rage clouded V's mind,  but they remembered Eddie's smile. All fangs, they swirled closer to Dawn, murmuring against her cheek.  **“If that changes, if you wish, we will break them. We promise.”**

_ We? Really,  V? _

**As though you** **_don't_ ** **want their heads.** V accepted Dawn's hesitant chin scratches, letting the anger fade, for now.  **You can't lie to us, Eddie.** **_We_ ** **are Venom.**

_ … And we can do what we want. _ Eddie smiled, encouragingly. “You should eat that. You said you were hungry.” Internally, with great focus, he formed his reply:  _ Not without her permission.  _

V arched themself slightly, so they could show Eddie one of their eye-spots,  a gesture that affirmed that he had their attention.  **Of course,  Eddie.**

“Yessir, thank you, sir.”

Dawn dug into the noodles like a starving animal, and Eddie's resolve wavered only a little bit, this time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I slept in a bit, enjoy ~


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dawn tells a story that eventually comes to a point.

“Do you know what that man wanted from you?” It hadn't seemed the best way to broach the topic, but ultimately,  Eddie wasn't sure there was a good way to bring it up.

She'd nodded, looking tired.  “He wanted to do sex to me, to us,  and I did not want him to do that because sex is messy and scary and I really-really do not - Sunny doesn't know to be scared and I am always scared and I don't want them to be scared, not ever.” Apparently, once it became apparent that she wouldn't be punished for speaking, she had quite a bit to actually say.

“If - you know, if someone ever asks you for sex, you never have to say yes. You know that,  right?” She nodded to that question, but she still looked glum. “I'm - I wanted to say, I know we haven't known each other long,  but I wanted to make sure you knew that I’m glad you're okay, after that. I - it can be a bit much, I still have trouble with, ah - _eating_ \- ”

And she just blinked at him, seeming as though she didn't fully comprehend why. “We are meat? It was - easy.” It seemed like only then did she consider her words, and she looked down at the second helping of noodles, before peeking up at him through her hair.

If he'd still been any flavor of religious,  he might have chosen that moment to appeal to a higher power for patience. He wasn't, hadn't been for a long time. On the one hand, he really didn't want to find out that Scream’s human half was an amoral killer, and on the other, he didn't want to damage Dawn's fragile emotional state. He'd put in too much work over the last couple of days, building her up.

“Really?” He asked, keeping his tone as lighthearted as possible. “I freaked out a bit,  the first couple of times.”

V chuckled, their voice rumbling softly in his skull. They'd retreated inside of him, continuing to work on - something. He didn't have a headache, anymore, at least. **Freaked out a lot.** They still found his reactions endearing, even months later.

Dawn considered, and once again, he got the sense that these long pauses were because she was grappling with how to say what she meant. Perhaps that, coupled with her parents’ abuse, explained her earlier silence?

“I - before we became ‘we,’ after I snuck out there - money is a thing, you know? Without um - ” She gestured with the fork. “No address, no job, no money,  no food. And - crazy.” She looked down and away. “Some guys like crazy, he said, he said it would be easy, easy money, easy, but I couldn't do it.” She stuffed the bite into her mouth, silencing herself with the noodles. A long silence stretched between them,  while she chewed on her meal and Eddie tried to digest what she'd just revealed.

He’d met more than his share of prostitutes, chasing leads in the unsavory parts of town. Too many of them had stories just like hers - a bad home life had them running away, and then, desperate, they found their way to a predator who promised them easy money for easy work.

They ended up used-up, broken down, with no escape to speak of.

“So, that's when you met with the LIFE Foundation?” It wasn't a difficult guess - the rash of disappearances around that time had all been lower-income, people who wouldn't be missed by anyone.

Dawn nodded. “At first, it was good! They did not ask many questions, they made sure I was clean and fed. They stole some blood to stare at it because I wasn't sick and I couldn't be sick,  and then - and then.”

“And then?” He prompted, following the story so far. They _would_ run physical tests, of course, to make sure the subjects weren't carrying any contagious illnesses.

She swirled the pasta around her fork. “I had to sign stuff to say I wouldn't say anything,  and I wouldn't take anything, and that they could stare at me and at my records and at my insides, and that if bad stuff happened, it wasn't their fault because I said so.” So far, standard medical waivers. Who'd have thought they would actually care about the legal aspect - but then, LIFE was a big pharmaceutical company. This probably wasn't their first dubiously ethical human testing,  just the first to involve aliens.

Dawn swallowed the mouthful of food, continuing her story. “I was really, really hungry, and they let me have all of the cookies I wanted and the nurse was really nice and she took me to the lab - ” She smiled, dreamily. “It was like sunshine, or fire maybe, all in yellow, and then I was up against the glass because it was pretty, and I wanted to see, and then it was open and it was warm, so warm. We went to sleep and we woke up and we were tied to the bed and that's when everything got bad.”

“You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to,  you know?” He'd be lying to say he wasn't curious. He remembered what V had looked like, after they'd been forcibly removed. At the time,  he wouldn't have called them ‘pretty,’ but now? Well, now it was V, so if _course_ they were pretty to his mind.

V purred, a warm sense rolling through the space between his bones. **Eddie is pretty too.**

“That is - good probably. Because - after then everything - ” She twirled the fork in the air,  contemplative. “In and out. Sick. Hungry. Always hungry. They kept making me eat more and more and it was never enough and then we got out and then - ” She jabbed her fork at the air, seeming almost triumphant. “And then there WAS food, and it was, um, rats and things, what we could catch. Gross, hard to catch, not enough, never enough. The bad man was clean and not too greasy and warm and crunchy and he tasted like bacon if bacon tasted purple. And he didn't struggle much. ”

Eddie had, genuinely, never heard a better way to describe the way that Venom processed certain senses. There just weren't always human equivalents, and even after bonding, he was pretty sure that his brain just wasn't wired to pick out a lot of the things V could taste. “Well,” he said, holding back a chuckle. “You won't go hungry here. No need to hunt rats or people unless you want to, and … well, I would really prefer if you didn't hunt people, okay?”

“Okay, ” She smiled, without a hint of guile or regret, and Eddie breathed an inward sigh of relief.

He'd almost forgotten why this topic had even been important, but she was almost done with her second instant noodle dish,  and they'd intended to finish the first episode after that, probably. “Do you mind if other people, uh, do sex?” Maybe if he borrowed her phrasing …

“... Like you and V?” She watched him with a hint of a smile on her face, the smile widening as her words sunk in and his cheeks darkened. “No, because in that case then, no one is doing sex to us, correct?”

How had she - what - of course she'd been able to see some of their thoughts, just as they'd witnessed some of hers - “Not - what I was getting at - but good to know,  thanks.”

“Then … what?” She didn't blink enough, he decided,  she watched him way too closely.

And he was still blushing because he hadn't figured they were that obvious. “Like - so in the show, one of the characters is, well, she’s a prostitute - ” And he was babbling, God help him,  because he did _not_ want to talk to this kid about _any_ kind of sex, much less _kinky alien tentacle sex._

“Oh.” She tilted her head to the side, her eyes distant as she worked through whatever had confused her. Eddie let her, figuring it was probably best to let her sort things out for herself. “Sex is … messy and sticky and boring, and there's sickness and babies and sticky sick babies.” She made a face. “ _We_ don't want sex but sex is in everything and we don't really care about sex if we're not involved.”

 **Is she not of breeding age?** V sounded mildly distracted, yet. **We had thought all mature humans enjoyed sex.**

 _Not all, V,_ Eddie thought back. _Some don't and it's pretty normal. Uncommon, but not bad._

Fortunately,  Dawn was willing to be patient with him. She waited, munching on the noodles, for him to refocus,  a fact he found himself grateful for.

“Did you - were you thinking,  we would see the mess on the screen and see the bad man?” She seemed genuinely curious. “In our head.”

Eddie nodded. “Yeah, that was a concern.”

“You are good. Venom is good, all of you and all of them.” She smiled warmly. “I have had a ‘Father.’ It was bad, I would not have a Father again. It's nice to have a ‘Dad,’ though - two, even.”

His heart swelled, catching somewhere near his throat, and he didn't have anything to say to that, not right then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ever have a character just up and announce something you hadn't planned for them? This is one of those times. Dawn is very ace, of the sex-repulsed variety, and V is gonna learn about that Later. 
> 
> Eddie just wanted to make sure if the TV show would be upsetting or not.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which panic isn't always rational.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I only got the news after posting yesterday. Rest in peace, Stan Lee.

When Dawn asked,  Eddie was happy to turn on the words - ‘subtitles,’ they were called. With the TV on, she could burrow herself into the story and ignore everything outside of it. She scooted forward,  to the edge of the couch, watching eagerly. It was much easier to not get lost inside her own head this way: the words helped her remember the story as it happened. 

The soldier-people had lost their war, that had been the first scene, and now the ones who lived were vultures, eating corpses that had been left behind, the hollowed-out remains of ships that had fallen to other causes, other killers. “What happened to the bad man’s body?” She asked, remembering the lower half had just kind of been left on the ground. She probably should have asked about that earlier.   
  
**“We ate it,”** V said, their tone suggesting it hadn’t been the best meal ever, but wasn’t too terribly unacceptable.  **“We could not risk detection, and it would be a waste not to.”**

With the story to focus on, she could almost drown out the rats in the walls, the hum of the refrigerator, the voices outside the window, and the knocking on the neighbor’s door. The building was alive with dozens of little sounds, water rolling through the pipes, the muffled sound of music from somewhere up above - how could Eddie stand it? 

But it was easier, with the TV on and the words to ground her, so the voices from the show weren't lost when the people upstairs started speaking,  muffled, incomprehensible, but distracting all the same. 

“She is bored,” she announced, pointing at the screen when the courtesan was finishing with her client.  “She is bored and he is dumb and boring.”

Eddie snorted from his spot on the couch, wrapped up in V’s embrace and curled up behind her slightly and to the left. Apparently, he'd gotten over his concern quickly enough. He'd maybe had a point, or he would have,  if it wasn't pretty obvious that the woman was in control of the situation the whole time. If she’d been afraid, if she’d been a victim - but she wasn’t, she was just doing her job, and she seemed to enjoy it well enough. 

And then the room was actually a small space shuttle and that was amazing, and the woman was a pilot too and  _ that _ was amazing, and all thought of the sex thing was put aside until the the captain decided to make a big deal of it, when introducing the ‘Companion’ to the preacher. “He's a jerk,” she decided, making a point of saying it aloud because thus far,  Eddie hadn't punished her for saying things, and she was starting to think he wasn't going to. 

“Eddie, why do people - religion people,  why don't they like, you know - with the sex thing.” She gestured vaguely, not really looking at him. “Isn't it important to multiply, like their big book of instructions for acting old fashioned says?”

V had their own question, this time:  **“What is ‘religion,’ Eddie?”**

“Okay, I'm going to need a minute to answer, uh,  all of that,” Eddie said, pausing the scene. “So … let's start from the top, I guess. Religion is …”

He fell silent for a moment,  seeking an answer to the question in his own head. “Can … um, can I try?” Sunny was still curled up in her bones,  worn out from before. They didn't mind it if she used their essence - but they weren't really part of the conversation. 

As Eddie blinked at her,  surprise in his expression, Dawn nibbled at her lip, suddenly worried that she might have overstepped her bounds. So far, she hadn't found any, and she was still waiting to be proven bad and wrong,  just as she knew she truly was - and she  _ was _ bad, and wrong and crazy besides -

“Sure, yeah,  go ahead.” She would have to keep waiting. 

She beamed at Eddie, her confidence renewed, then turned her attention to V, settling her eyes on the face they had formed above his head. “So a thing that lots and lots of people,  basically everybody who is a human person does it, is they have to try and look for a meaning in things because people like patterns, because I dunno.”

**“So, ‘religion’ is this … seeking?”** They rumbled the question,  thoughtfully. 

Dawn lifted her hand,  wobbling it back and forth. “Kind of? Some people, lots of people,  but not all people, a lot of other people look for their meanings in science stuff like the LIFE people did, but then there's religion which is … uhm - ” 

She gnawed at her lower lip for a moment, reaching, and finding, and it felt good to actually  _ know _ something for once. Maybe all of that time spent reading  _ wasn’t _ a waste. “So, people tell stories about how everything got made before people showed up,  and science has its ideas too, but religion got there first with stories of gods and stuff who are supposed to have made all the things.” She looked to Eddie for confirmation, not entirely sure if what she had said made any sense. She'd gotten her understanding mostly from books, though, more than one, even, so there was a reasonably good chance it was at least true. “Right?”

“I don't know if I could have explained that better,” he said, but she found that hard to believe. “The one thing I'd want to add, so we're kind of all on the same page, is that Christianity is probably the, uh,  most popular religion in America, which is this country we're in, V.”

They nodded.  **“We remember.”**

“Anyway, so a particular kind of Christianity got super popular here, a really uptight version where sex is considered bad in literally all circumstances but it's permissible if you're doing it with your spouse to, yeah, breed.” Eddie reached up, his hand just poking out of the blanket V had created, to scratch the back of his head, seeming embarrassed. “Anyway that sort of bled into the rest of our culture, and so - yeah.”   
  
V considered this.  **“So … When you call on this ‘God’ creature, that is religion?”**   
  
“... Not anymore, V. It’s more or less just a turn of phrase, now.” Eddie leaned back into the cushion, wrapped tightly in their embrace. “We good?”   
  
When they both responded in the affirmative, Eddie went to start the show again - 

\- and Dawn could hear the click of heeled feet outside the door, and then a kind of shuffling, a feminine grunt, a woman mumbling, and then a knock. “Eddie?”

Dawn was up first, rushing toward the door. It was the nice woman from before! She opened the door, peeking through the opening because she'd forgotten the dead bolt. She waved, smiling shyly when she was sure she'd caught the woman's attention, and pointed to the chain. 

“Hi, Dawn.” Anne had a box in her hands, a kind of large-ish box made of cardboard. “I've got a surprise here for you. If you'll let me in?”

She nodded, enthusiastically, closing the door and undoing the deadbolt,  so she could let Anne in. As soon as Anne stepped inside, she shut the door,  _ so that nothing could follow her. _ The deadbolt slipped back into place easily enough. 

“Hey,  Anne - you work fast. This is what you'd texted about?” Eddie was on his feet, V sinking mostly into his skin as he moved to inspect the box. 

V smiled at Anne, all teeth - of course.   **“Hello, Annie!”**

“Hey, yourselves. Dawn, sweetie, do you want to open the box?” Anne was smiling, and it went to her eyes, and Dawn couldn't help but smile back, still feeling shy, as she nodded.

She liked Anne. Anne was pretty, and smart, and she had a good voice, like water, soothing and soft, but there was something in it that said she could still be ice, sharp and cold, if she had to be. She didn't have to, though, so she wasn't. 

Dawn opened the box without too much trouble, prying the cardboard apart - and then, she just kind of stared at the contents, not really understanding what she was seeing.

“I got in touch with my contact at the LIFE Foundation, and they agreed that there wasn't any need for the potential legal repercussions of continuing to hold your things without your consent,  particularly not after they lost their last case.” She smiled, and it was a kind, warm smile. “After the launch incident, they seem to be trying to go in a new direction.”

Dawn continued to stare at the box in disbelief, unable to really, truly comprehend that the things she'd figured to be gone forever were here, in front of her, returned because they were hers. The world didn't work that way, not for her. 

“There is one thing though - and, Eddie, this concerns you, and V, as well. They want to interview you both, and maybe run some tests if you're willing to allow it.”

Eddie's voice had anger in it, as he responded, and the words escaped her entirely because Eddie was angry and it was her fault and she wasn't sure she could breathe. It was her fault; it had to be, she’d done something to anger him and she couldn’t  _ breathe. _

Dawn grabbed the box and fled, seeking shelter in the bathroom, where she could hide because  _ Eddie _ was  _ angry _ and she  _ must _ be the reason.

They were talking, but it was muddy, made more so by the distance and the walls between. She could hear them speaking about her, Eddie explaining that she was skittish. 

“With everything that's happened to her,  wouldn't you be? Eddie … after everything Drake did to you, I know you probably don't want to give them the time of day … ”

Dawn sort of wished she could turn off her ability to hear everything around her. She peeked inside the box. The dress was ratty and definitely not what Mother would call presentable - and Dawn had hated it anyway - but the dirty, worn-out denim purse had some things she had missed. 

“Can you blame me? Don't get me wrong, I'm happier now than I've ever been, but Anne, people died in there.” It was muffled,  but - oh. She kind of felt foolish. With distance, and the relative safety of the bathtub, she could listen to him and realize that was pain,  as much as anger, and it was at the LIFE people.

V's voice was rumbling, low, but certainly still audible.  **“What kind of tests,  Annie?”**

“Nothing invasive, nothing that would hurt you or Eddie - ”

V interrupted:   **“We can care for ourselves. They wish to interview Dawn.”**

“... yeah. I can't say I'm exactly thrilled about that,  either.”

Here was her old wallet, with her bus card, her library card,  and what little money she had left, here was her ID, and the card with the number that said she was born here, that she was a human person. Social security, though the card itself had never made her more social, or more secure. She was a person, with these, at least legally. Here was her sewing kit that she'd taken when she left, the needle still threaded with black from the last time she'd ripped her skirt. The boots were worn out, the gloves and socks were both more thread than fabric, but they'd still been returned, even though she didn't need them anymore. 

Maybe she could ask Eddie for a replacement - she did like gloves, especially fingerless ones. 

While she was at it,  she could ask for books. She'd had to abandon the few she owned, when she ran away. She had missed reading,  when she wasn't able to do so. 

It was more than time to face the others. Dawn was feeling foolish, now, because she'd been weak again, she'd shown fear again, but at least she hadn't hurt anybody.

That was progress, right? 

She poked her head out of the bathroom, still clutching her things. “Um - who is Drake?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that happened.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which V is a hopeless romantic.

So, any talk of change had been a lie. 

Dawn was easily worn out by questions, and V could hardly blame her. Human language had nuance and complexity that still, somehow, managed to strip much of the meaning from communication.

They were able to help,  surprisingly. When she stopped being able to work out the words for herself, she reached out for V, opening her memories with wordless gratitude. 

It was still fascinating. Eddie even took note -  _ wait, can I do that? _ \- of how easily she tapped into Sunny's talents, treating her symbiote as though it were an extension of her own body. The gold twined around her hand served as an effective link,  with Sunny only grumbling slightly and turning over inside of her, still hibernating. 

Perhaps it was because they were so young - Dawn was far younger than Eddie, her mind far more flexible than his had been. Meanwhile,  Sunny had never been fed the old lie that they must, at all times, be the dominant partner.

**Probably, yes. We will try later.**

_ Later, _ Eddie agreed, as V quickly sifted through her memories of the LIFE Foundation. There were doctors,  nurses, other symbiotes, other hosts - but for a project Drake would surely have been keenly interested in,  the man himself was absent.

“Either Drake didn't take any part in this research,  or - ”

V rumbled displeasure.  **“Or, more likely,  by the time it began, he was dead.”**

“But … I figured she escaped during the launch incident?” Anne frowned, thinking it over. “I suppose any number of things could be the cause of that kind of alarm, though, especially where, ah - ”

V nodded.  **“Trying to contain our people has been disastrous for yours,”** they agreed, simply.  **“Any breach of security could have been her ‘moment.’”**

Dawn had fallen silent, for her part, overwhelmed by the myriad demands of being human. She was resting her chin on one arm,  now, tracing the patterns in the table. She peeked up at V, then, smiling as they explained. 

She did, however,  volunteer one thought,  clear and vivid: there had been communication, in this more recent round of testing. There had been no procession of pointless deaths,  and to the best of her knowledge, V's other offspring were likely still alive. 

“Waaait, wait - back up. How many of you were there?” Anne looked between them,  puzzled, as Eddie turned his attention to this new question. “Sorry - she's not so good with words. Dawn - do you remember?”

She shook her head,  slowly - she didn't know exactly. 

There was the purple girl in the cell across from hers, who liked to paint her nails and flip off the security guards, and the howling green creature down the way, the one who had been half wild, always lashing out with thick tentacles. 

The glass in that cell had always been rattling.

“At least two others?” Eddie looked to Anne. “She says that there were at least a couple other, uh, tests. They were mostly fine, when she left,  anyway - right?”

He looked to V, then to Dawn. V, for their part, was still rolling over her memories. There had been other cells,  more distant ones that she had not been able to see inside. 

**“Maybe more. Likely more.”**

Anne's phone made an unpleasantly shrill noise, drawing a hiss from V, sending them coiling inside of Eddie for safety.  

“Ah - I'm going down to the pier with Dan, today - don't be a - don’t be strangers, okay? And whatever you decide - please,  please don't do anything too reckless. I'd hate to see any harm come to you.”

Dawn was watching Anne, as she spoke,  her expression wary, uncertain. Anne, for her part, looked down at Dawn. “You, too, sweetie. Try to keep these idiots out of trouble,  will you?”

**_“Annie - !”_ **

Dawn gave Anne a gesture, her thumb raised in a signal of agreement, her face lit up with a smile. Anne leaned down, impulsively, and pressed her lips to Dawn's forehead, a kiss that Eddie identified as familial.

And then Anne was gone,  and Dawn was locking the door behind her.

“Can we finish - ” she gestured at the TV, “ - later?  _ Tired _ .”

V unwound from Eddie, reforming with ease.   **“Of course.”**

“Did you want to do anything else?” Humans needed significantly more sleep than Klyntar, yes, especially when recovering from injury. However, even they had limits, it seemed.

Dawn held up her right hand, focusing, intent.  She formed a golden rod between her fingertips, a prop that Eddie identified as a ‘pen,’ when she mimicked scratching at the table with it. “Sure,  I've got a couple notepads lying around somewhere - ”

He turned the rolling chair toward the desk. “You know, I think we could use to get a couple more chairs,  huh? If Anne wants to come over more, or if she brings Dan.”

“Mmhm.” Dawn watched as Eddie rifled through his things, curious. 

He flipped through the first notepad he found, making sure it was mostly empty, and made a face. 

**What is wrong?**

_ Just … I was a different person, is all, V. I'm glad you found me. _ He ripped out the first two pages, then handed the notebook and one of a dozen new pens over to Dawn. And he smiled, his brain lighting up with warmth. “All yours, kid.”

**Found each other,  Eddie.**

_ Yeah, _ he agreed, remembering.  _ Yeah, we did. _

 

* * *

 

The afternoon passed in relative peace. 

Dawn's writing was nothing like Eddie's, what little V could make out of it. She seemed to treat the lines in the notebook as suggestions, turning the paper any time a new idea entered her mind. 

Eddie, for his part, turned his mind to research, having found a new truth to pursue, a kind of hunting V was woefully ill-equipped to help with. The best assistance they could provide was to simply get out of his way. 

They were bored, a situation that had honestly never come up before meeting Eddie, and the only  _ real _ downside to their otherwise idyllic partnership. 

In nearly every way, Eddie had given them the kind of symbiosis they'd only dreamed of: they loved and supported him, he loved and supported them. But in a relationship of equals, that meant that their will could not always be supreme - in a way, they had much to learn from their offspring.

They were neither injured nor fragile; little would be gained from settling into hibernation other than the passage of time. 

Of course, there were the deeply human issues,  the new concepts they were yet digesting. Religion wasn't wholly foreign, as an idea - the Klyntar had several superstitions among them. Generally, those ideas had been founded upon concrete bases, however. 

In any case, V had never much cared for long introspection, and like Dawn, they were exhausted by it all. 

“Why don't you put on one of your shows, V?”

Ah, yes. Eddie did have ‘Netflix,’ a vast repository of human entertainment. 

V could just about work the remote without external aid, now, and their efforts were rewarded with one of the ‘anime’ stories that Eddie had suggested, with the demon-dog and his beloved human women. They had followed it for several episodes, now.

**Why can he not have both of them,  Eddie?**

_ Because he's not great at communication, V. _

**We would do it better.**

_ I'm sure.  _

V didn't fully understand human entertainment,  but they did understand love. Maybe, just maybe, that could be enough. 

Even if it wasn't, they weren't bored any longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not have Netflix and don't actually know what all is available on it! However I do know that like a lot of Eddie's explanations, that's an oversimplification.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some things are not discussed.

Saturday had been an eventful day. Maybe too eventful, honestly.

Long after Dawn had settled in to sleep, Eddie convinced V to come to bed for something a bit more interesting than anime. Admittedly,  it was mostly a ploy to wear both of them out. He was already exhausted, himself, but he had too many things on his mind. 

And then, he had only V on his mind. That was a  _ much _ more agreeable situation, for both of them. 

* * *

Sometime after daybreak, he staggered out of his room, yawning hugely. He wasn't paying too much attention - until he was, because things were upside down - wait -

“Ack!” He flung his hand up to shield his eyes, because no, it was  _ Dawn _ who was upside-down, clinging to the ceiling, her hair pooling on the floor. The confusion would be disorienting enough, but then her shirt wasn't exactly doing a great job of protecting her modesty. 

There was a smile to her voice, a smile he could almost resent her for because nobody should be that cheerful before noon. “Eddie! Look what we figured out!”

“Uh - check your shirt, kiddo.”

There was a noise he could only describe as  _ wet _ , and then she asked:  **“Better?”**

Sunny had formed around her, covering her skin in a sheath of skintight gold and red. It still seemed - not entirely modest - and her shirt was still dangling by the sleeves, but …

“Uh. Yeah. What's - all this?”

He stepped carefully around her,  and she turned as he did so, moving one foot, firmly affixing it to the ceiling,  then moving the other. “Don't worry about - I'm just not much for company before coffee.” It wasn't exactly intended to emphasize his point, but he reached for the coffee grounds, all the same. He needed caffeine to deal with whatever this was all about. 

**Symbiosis,** V purred, still coiled comfortably within his bones.

**“We were bored,”** she replied, her voice taking on a melodic echo.  **“So we decided to see what kinds of things we could do. Nobody ever looks up.”**

She - they? - grinned, showing all of her many,  many fangs. At least they were having fun with it,  working in tandem like that.

“Didn't really have to do much looking,” he mumbled, rubbing at his mouth to try and clear it of the residue from his lover's wake-up kiss. His beard needed a trim, too, based on how it felt. He’d passed up ‘devil may care’ and was rapidly approaching ‘crazy homeless man.’

There was a subtle shifting behind him as he poured out the grounds, getting the machine ready. Turning, he saw that she was no longer immediately visible. He looked up, to see her clinging to the ceiling, her hair defying gravity to coil against the tiles.

He couldn't help but smile. “Honestly, Scream, I think if you were going to sneak up on someone like that, they'd have a heart attack even if they did spot you.” 

What's the point of having a fancy superhero name, if you never use it?

They giggled, their voices still echoing with their mutual delight, but not nearly as painful as they had been, before. As he watched, Scream slowly, deliberately lowered their form, twisting in midair to extend their feet below them. For several precarious moments, they were suspended only by a cascade of golden tendrils, their hair swirling around them,  and then both feet were planted on the ground and their hair was retracting toward their skull.  **“Tadaa~”**

“Showoff,” he grinned, clapping all the same. It had been an impressive performance, one he wasn't sure that even he could pull off as Venom. 

V considered, evaluating the maneuver.   **Not so slowly,** they agreed, noting the fine dexterity that the myriad tendrils allowed their offspring. A swell of paternal pride filled them, warming Eddie's heart.

“We're sure you could do better,” Dawn said, her cheeks a rosy pink as Sunny sank into her skin. “But … we did good?” A painfully hopeful note was audible in her voice. 

Eddie smiled. “You did good, and no - it's like your voice. There are things you can do that we can't.”

“... What do you look like? As Venom?” She looked earnest, genuinely curious, and Eddie realized that she wouldn't actually  _ know _ . 

He blinked, slowly, still working under the weight of his pre-coffee fog. “Uh. Tell you what,  lemme get coffee and wake up a bit, and I'll show you after, all right?”

“Okay!” She walked over to the fridge, hesitating for only a moment before seizing the handle to the freezer and opening it. If he hadn't known what to look for, he might have missed the moment,  and the way she sagged, oh-so-subtly, with relief when nothing happened. V bristled slightly when he pointed it out, and their restless hunger had him yearning for heads again. 

Instead, he remembered something slightly more important. “How are you at cooking?” He knew she could work a microwave well enough. She shrugged, lifting her hand in that uncertain gesture, as she grabbed one of the pre-packaged breakfast sandwiches from inside. “Tell you what. Make that whole box for me? I've got something for you,  I can't believe I forgot until now.”

“... Okay.” She seemed uncertain,  but only for a moment - the box only contained four sandwiches total,  and two of them would just barely hold him for a couple hours. Even if she was smaller,  she was still eating for two, now. He wasn't sure which of them he was more concerned for - Dawn, or Sunny. He also wasn't sure whether he was more concerned about them or V was, and it was  _ far _ too early for him to sort that out in his head. 

For his part,  Eddie ducked into the bathroom. His reflection did, in fact, desperately need a shave, but that wasn't what he was in there for. He examined himself for only a moment,  making sure there weren't any lingering marks - V could be  _ enthusiastic _ \- before popping open the medicine cabinet and grabbing the bottle of pills. 

Thank God for snake oil salesmen.

Because of how the chemical metabolized in humans, it was just this side of worthless for Eddie to take it himself unless he wanted particularly expensive urine. Technically, there were  _ some _ benefits - but not enough to justify the price on his income. 

Instead, he mentally nudged V, holding out one of the pills for them to consume. It took a long moment for them to unfurl - they were still basking in the afterglow of their morning routine - and then they coiled around his neck in a sleepy, contented hug, warmth crawling down his back and sides as they went to squeeze him, inside and out.

Their tongue extended lazily, wrapping around the pill with delicate precision -  _ don't think about where it had just been, not half an hour before _ \- and drew it into their maw, already beginning to process the chemical mix far more efficiently than Eddie's body ever could. That done, he grabbed another pill for Dawn.

Chocolate was delicious by just about anyone's standards,  and brains - okay, yeah, he wasn't awake enough to argue with himself - raw, struggling meat held an appeal that Venom was hard pressed to ignore, but a  _ legal, safe, _ and  _ effective _ pill wasn't going to land anyone in jail, or even make them sick.

He decided to take a minute to actually brush his teeth and shave, setting the pill aside where he'd remember, definitely - he wouldn't, he knew himself better than that, but V grabbed it before he could misplace it. “Thanks, love.”

Distantly,  they heard the microwave ding, and a faint mumbling, and Eddie realized that no matter how quiet they'd tried to be, it probably hadn't been quiet enough. That was a topic he had no intention of bringing up, ever, preferably. God help him.

V absolutely hated the sound of an electric razor,  and honestly, Eddie couldn't blame them. So it took a little longer. If they were very careful, the end result was basically the same. 

The first time he'd given himself a migraine with an electric razor, V had threatened to make all of his hair fall out at the roots. He'd pointed out that perfectly smooth skin made him look soft (him, not  _ them _ ; he wasn't sure Venom could look soft if they tried), and so V let him keep the scruff along his chin.

**Eddie is perfect because Eddie is Eddie,** they mumbled, still sounding a bit drowsy.  **Fur or no fur.** Maybe more than a bit.

He grinned, rubbing at the top of their head. “C'mon, big guy. You've got an audience to impress.” It was playful, but he was ignoring a lingering twist of anxiety in his own stomach. What if, what if. Dawn had been remarkably calm about a lot of things, but would nine feet of toothy murder be on that list? 

… maybe. He'd take it slow, given that her fear was one of the few things that could really hurt them.

**It will be fine,** V said, their jaws stretching wide in a yawn.  **You will see, Eddie.**

The microwave went off again, and they stepped out into the living are. Dawn was grinning mischievously. The coffee was in a mug on the table,  but the plate there was empty. “Food after. Show us.”

“Is that how it's gonna be, then?” He smirked. “I guess with those kinds of terms,  **_we just can't argue.”_ **

Her eyes widened a bit as he felt V pouring outward from his skin, his field of view shifting up - and up. They barely fit within the small apartment, or so it felt, towering nearly double the  _ smaller host's _ size. 

There was a moment of uncertainty,  and they settled into a crouch, staring across the table at Dawn. 

After beginning the transformative cascade, however, V seemed content to ride along, little more than a complacent passenger this morning. For the first time, it was Eddie who held their immense power as Venom. The feeling of it all was heady, but a little bit terrifying - he was far too aware of everything, and perhaps a bit worried that one false move could spell destruction for any of the dozens of fragile little objects littering their home.

“... Venom?” Her voice was soft, quiet even in comparison to her normal speaking tone. They were  _ aware _ of her effort to protect them, the painstaking control over her voice because it  _ was _ a weapon. Some part of their awareness extended to the symbiote, their offspring, the essence of  _ them _ given a new life. 

**We wish to see things from your perspective,**  V murmured, and there was a sense of reciprocity to it. They'd shared so many novelties, experiencing the mundane with him - and they wanted him to experience the world as they saw it. To share, as partners. 

He was touched, if a bit disoriented. 

Hesitantly,  he tilted his head to the side, nodding at Dawn's question. The ‘muscles’ V had created for Venom were roughly analogous to human muscles, and yet, there was the ever present sense that they didn't  _ have _ to be. He could move like normal - or  _ not _ .

Disorienting, yeah. 

Dawn moved slowly, but deliberately, setting the second plate (the one that held all four of the breakfast sandwiches) on the table. She paced around them, inspecting their form, the sheer size of them. There was a nearly predatory sense of purpose in her movements, a stillness to each subtle motion. 

Then, suddenly, there was a rush of movement from behind. Eddie was so distracted by realizing that  _ hey, woah, _ he could actually perceive the nuances of her actions without his eyes, that he couldn't bring himself to react in time. V, for their part, made a note that they should probably hold onto control in actual combat, because their human was just about hopeless in a fight.  _ Thanks, V. _

Her arms wrapped tight around his shoulders, thin tendrils of gold coiling tight around his entire body. “Dad is awesome,” she mumbled,  her voice warm against his neck. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, yes, this _is_ a symbrock fic. I'm rather deliberately skipping the "explicit" rating on this fic.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which time progresses in a linear fashion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My hand slipped, and then an art appeared.
> 
>  

The week passed rather uneventfully, save for the feeling that she was being watched, being observed, her movements followed.

At first, she didn't take much note: she always felt like that, more or less. 

On Monday, there were people moving the neighbor's things out of his apartment. 

The old woman, the landlord, was angry about how the bad man had just skipped town without even telling her he wouldn't be paying for another month. Apparently, by the time he got eaten -  _ by the time he'd tried to hurt Dawn _ \- he'd been overdue on his rent. Dawn decided it was not in her best interest to enlighten the woman about what had really happened, and quietly closed the door.

Later, Scream managed to creep up to the rooftop, using that trick they'd learned, sinking Sunny’s essence just inside of the wall to anchor them. They watched the sunset together, and they let Eddie and V have some ‘alone’ time.

And yet, someone was watching her, just out of sight, so she drew Sunny inside of her skin, because they couldn't be seen like that. 

The Eye Unstuck From Time had plastered itself across the entire street, though. Its patterns swirled in ever-shifting, nearly geometric nonsense. Ultimately, she figured that was all it was, the sense of being watched had just been her brain playing a cruel trick. She did her best to ignore it, and they enjoyed their chocolate milkshake and the way that pink and purple swirled into indigo and black at the edge of nightfall.

Tuesday, an old man - she knew he was old because of the bend in his spine, the thick glasses, and the white hair that was thinning on top - stopped by to check out the newly vacant apartment. 

He flirted with the landlady, but ultimately, he decided he could do better. 

This building had rats, after all. 

Anne showed up on Tuesday, as well. She mentioned that Dawn could still work on getting her GED, she could have a real, normal life. Dawn agreed, and she asked Anne how to get the address on her ID changed, and Anne said she'd help take care of it. Dawn walked Anne out to her car, and she was certain that someone was watching them. 

She couldn't find their eyes, but she  _ knew _ . 

Then Eddie got home late, and he'd just  _ decided _ to buy her a smartphone, another thing she couldn't begin to pay him back for.

She decided she could help keep his apartment in some kind of order, because that was something he was incredibly bad at, and she started by putting together the chairs he'd bought that day. The chairs had come with ‘some assembly required,’ but they were much more comfortable than his old kitchen chair (they had cushions!), and there were four of them, and their packaging included all the tools she would actually need for the work. 

He offered to help her put the chairs together, but she asked him to go away,  because she liked following instructions and he liked making things up as he went along. 

The chairs could support their weight as Venom, after she was done. They were impressed with her work, and she was happy. 

Tuesday had been a very busy day. She forgot about the feeling of being watched until she was trying to fall asleep, and it kept her awake until she heard the subtle noises of Eddie and V  _ trying _ to be quiet.

On Wednesday, Eddie asked her if she thought she would try talking to the LIFE people. It was her decision to make,  just as it was his decision whether or not he would, and V's if they would. Sunny was far too young to make an informed decision - and that was sort of why Dawn hadn't yet finalized her own. 

She pointed out that it could prevent a bit of suffering, that they could help the people that Drake's work might otherwise have hurt. He agreed, but he didn't seem sure of it. 

Then they went down to a local shop together, and the woman, Mrs. Chen, spent their entire visit fussing after her. 

Apparently, she was ‘just skin and bones,’ and Eddie and V both got a lecture about how they weren't feeding her enough. She got to show off Sunny, albeit in a subdued way: they twisted themself into a necklace with several golden strands, so that Mrs. Chen could see. Then, Mrs. Chen fed Sunny a chocolate bar, and Dawn tried to ignore the eyes on her back as they all walked home. 

On Thursday, she decided she was going to find out who was following her. 

She took a long walk around the block, keeping her head low, making herself small. She knew better than that - she knew that a small,  unobtrusive girl was a target, but that was the  _ point _ . She needed to lure out this new watcher,  because the waiting was driving her crazy … well, crazier. 

Eventually, she ducked down a back alley, intending to finally confront her pursuer. She thought for sure that she saw a man at the mouth of the alley, the silhouette of a dog beside him - and then they were gone, along with the sense she was being watched. 

She went home, and when Eddie returned, they finally finished watching the first episode of “Firefly” together. 

She felt a kind of kinship with the girl in the box. After all, hadn't she broken out of a sketchy facility that ran weird experiments on her? Didn't she have a man in her life now, a family member who would move mountains to save her? 

Also, the girl had been disorganized, her words jumbled in her panic, and Dawn knew that feeling all too well.

 

* * *

 

On Friday, the purple girl from the LIFE Foundation moved in next door. 

**_FRIEND!_ ** Sunny recognized the people girl,  remembered that her cocky attitude had helped Dawn stay brave. 

She felt conflicted, at first, watching from Eddie's door - but when the purple girl dropped a box on her own foot and started cursing the air blue, Dawn unlocked the door and quietly began to help her move her boxes from where she'd been stacking them in the hallway. Together, they managed to get all of her things inside of her new apartment. 

The other girl was tall, with indeterminately brown skin. Her hair was rough, black with vivid pink streaks. Her nails had been painted a similarly bright pink, though the polish was chipping away due to the day’s work. 

She also had a rather pronounced Adam's apple - Dawn couldn't remember why that was important - and kind of a loud personality, even when she was being nice. Over the course of the afternoon, ‘Les’ had talked more than enough for both of them. 

“You're the kid who broke us out, aren't you?”

Dawn nodded, warily, still holding a box that was getting heavier by the moment. It had some kind of electronics in it. 

“Bleeding ears aside, I wanted to say thanks, kid. Put that down by the table there - there you go.” A warm smile lit her face as Dawn helped. She liked helping. “If it wasn't for you, I’d probably still be locked up right now. I wasn't the most, uh,  _ compliant _ subject.”

Dawn peered up into those chocolate brown eyes, and she couldn't see a hint of deception there. “Not mad?”

“Nah, once me and my little buddy picked ourselves off the pavement, we got the hell out, and it's all thanks to you.” She grinned, flashing brilliantly white teeth. “Honest, kid. I even got to kick that one asshole who kept flirting with me in the junk on my way home.”

“We're - glad.” Dawn smiled, shyly. “We remember you telling him all about how you were going to shove his head up his own ass. Did you?”

Leslie blinked, blinked again, and then burst into a loud, brilliant laugh. “Nah, kid, that would have been a waste of his head, wouldn't it?”

Dawn considered, remembering her own human-shaped meal from just under a week ago, and then nodded. The head had been the tastiest part. “Eddie says chocolate helps, too,” she mumbled, remembering that it was something about chemicals, and that he didn't really want to tell the LIFE people about the pills until he knew if they could be trusted. 

“Eddie? Like, Eddie Brock?  _ The _ Eddie Brock?”

Dawn nodded, solemnly.

“The guy who called out Carlton Drake on live TV?  _ The Brock Report? _ That Eddie Brock?”

Dawn blinked. Apparently, Les knew more about her dad's work than she did. “He - escaped. From LIFE - from the - he had a symbiote. Like us. Remember? The videos?” 

They'd shown the subjects what true symbiotes could achieve, if they worked together. It was supposed to be inspiring or something. Mostly, Dawn remembered that he'd looked scared, because he was being hunted. She remembered wanting to protect Sunny, because they didn't deserve to live in fear. 

“ _ No way, _ so you went looking for him?” 

Dawn nodded, then looked up and over. 

The front door to the apartment building had opened, and an odd sense of wariness settled over her. 

V, it was V and Eddie, she sensed Venom - she could smell blood.

“Kid?” 

She stepped to the door, looking over,  holding a finger to her lips.

**“Dawn?”**

Hesitantly, she opened the door, into the hallway. Venom was there, a greenish tentacle held in their right claw. It oozed a fluid that might have been blood - but it was far too dark, and it didn't smell right, either. 

“What hurt you?”

V was dripping their own blood, too.

**_PROTECT?_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, hey, a thing that happened.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there actually is something like conflict.

There had been another Klyntar stalking them. If it had merely been following Eddie, they might have waited for it to start the fight. Maybe they'd have even let it state its intentions, maybe not. 

Dawn had caught its attention, however,  had even attempted to lure it out. 

Should have consulted them. 

_ She's not used to relying on others,  V. _

Still, she should have sought their help, and because she didn't,  they'd forced the issue, finding another of their offspring lurking far too close to home. 

They'd been injured in the fight, but so had their opponent.

**“Dawn.”** They looked down at the young host,  feeling a wash of relief, because she was unharmed, and that was what mattered. They staggered forward - their leg, Eddie's leg, it snapped repeatedly as they put it back into its rightful order.  **“You are okay.”**

A woman - was that a woman? She smelled off - opened the door behind her, and Venom found themself growling, because here was another one of their offspring, spying, ingratiating -

“Holy fucking shit, is that him?” She stared up at them with naked awe in her expression. Good. She was right to fear them. 

Dawn nodded.  “Hurt. He is - Venom, inside. Please? Need to see.” She opened the door, the door that went to their home,  opened it to this stranger. “This is Leslie. She is a friend. Please, you are hurting.”

It was true, Eddie's fragile body released a wash of chemicals when he was injured. It made it difficult to think. They reluctantly followed Dawn,  settling into one of the chairs she had crafted for them, and relaxing only marginally as she closed the door behind her friend, the stranger. She locked it,  because of course she did. She was mostly a wise youth. 

“So, can I just ask, what even the fuck?”

Venom regarded this new stranger with suspicion.  **“Your sibling,”** they growled,  dropping the still-twitching greenish tentacle on the table. 

“Only child, my man. I know that thing, though - from when we were all getting filled up with  _ parasites _ under the assumption we were gonna get paid.” She prodded the writhing mass with curiosity. “That guy didn't take to it very well, didn't figure he made it.”

That word again, but she … might have a point. Their offspring were too young for true symbiosis. Sunny had learned well, but Sunny had their guidance. 

They scowled at the dismembered tentacle on the table, not entirely sure why they'd kept it - everything was muddy,  and they wanted to hunt, to rip, tear,  _ protect _ .  **“Not parasites,”** they growled. 

“You'll forgive me if I doubt your journalistic integrity on this one, Mister Brock.” That insincere tone was known as sarcasm. 

There was a wash of cold fear from their host,  from Eddie, because nobody could know. They found their mouth curling in a snarl, the rage welling up. “Oh, don't get your panties in a fucking twist. I tell anybody you have a space alien shoved up your ass, they'll come poking at mine, you feel me?” Violet swirled in her eyes, her Other waking. “So what was  _ this _ asshole doing that you had to tear his, uh,  tentacle off?”

**“What, you can't ask them yourself?”** They narrowed their eye spots down to thin slits. 

Fear. They could taste fear on the air, not from the stranger, but from Dawn. That was - they would need to deal with that. 

“Eddie -  _ Venom _ , she - it's not - please don't fight?” Tears. She had tears, the salty wetness overflowing her eyes, rolling down her cheeks. They tilted their head downward, guilt forming a weight in their chest.  _ “Please?” _

There was a sense of frustration from the girl, from  _ Leslie, _ at this. “Fine, whatever.” Her hand entered their field of view. “I wanna find out what's going on here, because I'm  _ not _ with LIFE, and I  _ don't _ want them finding me again. So - truce, old man?”

They bristled, at that, but at the same time, Dawn seemed to trust this stranger - the part of them that was Eddie faltered first. 

Then, V pulled back, slowly sinking within their shared skin, still wary. Eddie's hand reached out,  and he clasped the woman's hand, lifting it, dropping it, a formal gesture. “Truce,” he agreed, despite their displeasure. 

V didn't want a truce. They wanted to hunt, to kill.  _ Pull it in, big guy. _ Eddie's heart rate was elevated. His body was under stress because of their rage. Reluctantly, they withdrew further, trying to find calm. Focus on Eddie's heart,  on his breathing, in and out. He relaxed, subtly, as they did. His heart beat slower. He stabilized, and they found stability. 

Dawn rubbed at her eyes, wiping away her tears with an expression not unlike impatience. “Smells - feels - was following. This one was tracking us.” She gestured at the tendril. “Um. Why do we have this - oh.”

As they watched, the tendril began to collapse in upon itself, its owner finally releasing the missing mass. The LIFE Foundation had done something, to stabilize the samples they took. When removed, when distant, lost essence deteriorated rapidly. 

At least that much remained true.

“Well, that's new.” Eddie blinked at the rapidly-crumbling limb with something like awe, or maybe fear. Before long, it had become little more than a pile of dust on the table. 

Reluctantly, with a sour expression for the stranger,  V emerged from Eddie's skin, forming their own mouth to communicate.  **“Not new,”** they explained,  before the stranger gasped, flinging herself backward in shock.

“What the fu **CK?!”**

Purple swirled into indigo,  the young symbiote shielding its partner. Her hair grew into a wild mane, her physical shape exaggerated somewhat,  becoming more distinctly feminine. Her fangs had an unusual distribution, more akin to those of a snake than the traditional maw most Klyntar formed.

“Um. That's V.” Dawn looked over at ‘Leslie,’ who was clinging to the wall. Her maw was dripping some form of acidic secretion, as evidenced by the sizzling on the floorboards. “Eddie says you should have a superhero name when you're all dressed up like that,” she mumbled,  seeming entirely uncertain what to do about this situation. In her defense, V was also not entirely certain what to do.

Her eyespots were held wide in shock.  **“Agony - Agony’s fine. They can talk?!”**

**“We are people,”** V grumbled. **“Of course we communicate. Our offspring are young,  too young to be bonded, but they will learn from you.”** At this point,  it was something of an inevitability - if they'd managed to maintain their host without guidance this long, they must  _ love _ her. They weren't holding together very well - reluctantly,  almost bitterly, V turned to Eddie.  **“Give them one of our pills. Our offspring risk insanity if they cannot get enough to eat.”**

**“Hey, hey, I've be** en eating like an Olympian bodybuilder since I got this fucking thing,  I eat plenty!” As they watched, she settled down onto her feet, unravelling her bonded form nearly effortlessly. They didn't like how easily the human used their offspring - she knew nothing about them. “I moved into this dump on the hope I could afford food and rent with your kid, jackass!”

_ The only way she can learn is if we teach her,  big guy. _ Eddie smiled wryly. “Yeah, but it's not just food. There's something specific they need, a brain chemical we make, or they start going - well, kind of unstable.”

“Is that why - ” She'd followed them toward the bathroom, glancing over her shoulder at Dawn. 

Before Eddie could respond, Dawn spoke. “We can  _ hear _ you, you know.” V was surprised,  and pleased, how quickly she rose to assert herself.

“Well, is it?” Leslie demanded, hands on her hips.

Eddie opened the bottle of pills and fished out exactly one. This bottle was running empty, but it was fine, because Eddie made a point of keeping at least one more than they needed, always. Eddie was always so good to them,  always tried to be thoughtful.

They turned, to watch the youth's reaction, still ready to tear this stranger apart if she harmed Dawn. 

_ Man, V, you could be a little nicer to your kids, _  Eddie’s voice caressed them from the inside, a playful reprimand.  _ Sure, their other parent's a sketchy corporation, but they didn't ask to get made. _

Dawn, for her part, shook her head. “We're -  _ my _ brain was sick before  _ we _ became we. Isn't their fault.” She folded her arms, looking down and away. 

They felt … guilt. It was guilt, with rage simmering just beneath the surface. If they had  _ chosen _ to produce offspring,  they could have guided them from the start. 

**We did not consent to the making,** they hissed, internally.  **Give her the pill, Eddie.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you missed it yesterday, I also added an art at the start of the previous chapter! Turns out when you have the ability, you can just make your _own_ fanart, who knew?
> 
> Eddie doesn't have super good impulse control. Neither does V. So, here we are.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eddie had a bad week.

This was not Eddie's week. 

V didn't have much trouble fixing their leg,  _ his _ leg - there wasn't anything solid about V to break. But they'd put him back together,  just like before.  **Always, Eddie. Always fix you. Want you, only you.**

He was still struggling to put together anything for his actual job because he'd had a nasty feeling in his gut after speaking to Kassidy. It was a feeling he'd been unable to shake, and it led to him wasting the time that he should be following leads. What good was it to dig up the past of an inmate who was never going to see the light of day? But the man's words had haunted him, and that led to him becoming something of a preoccupation for Eddie.

_ “When I get out,  _ **_and I will._ ** _ ” _

What the fuck. He’d notified the proper authorities, of course; publicly speaking, Eddie Brock was just a reporter. V had suggested that they didn’t  _ need _ to leave Kassidy alive - he’s the kind of bad they eat. Sometimes, V made a damn good case for sating their hunger on particularly nasty humans, but they could do without adding prison time for vigilantism to Eddie’s record.

Thank God  _ he _ hadn't gotten his hands on one of V's offspring - that was a match made in Hell if ever there was one. From what Eddie could tell, the younger “Klyntar” - V's people had a name, and nobody knew that,  _ seriously? _ \- were picking up a  _ lot _ from their first hosts. 

Dawn was largely cheerful, easy to please,  and so was Sunny. She'd opened up so much over the last week. Sure, she could be a bit erratic, but she had a good heart, and a remarkably sharp mind. More than once, her blunt mode of speech had cut straight through the bullshit. Sunny was the same - direct, open, honest, and enthusiastic. 

Leslie was … well, kind of a bitch, always looking out for herself first. Eddie knew the type,  could even sort of understand it: nobody else had ever been on her side, so if course she had to stand up for herself. 

Her symbiote had been nearly catatonic, putting her needs first. 

When V managed to explain that,  she'd been horrified, though. Now, she was treating her symbiote better than a lot of parents treated their own children. It reminded Eddie a bit of how some extremely fanatic pet owners pampered their “fur babies.” ‘Abby’ even resembled a snake, right down to the dead rats. Which, ew. V suggested that rats were easier for the younger,  weaker spawn, and they'd have probably moved up to bigger, more delicious prey with experience. 

Like humans. Humans were smart, interesting prey, and they had a huge brain to body ratio. Again, there was that lingering juxtaposition of V’s natural hunger and Kassidy’s trained cruelty.    


Eddie had no doubt that a cannibalistic serial killer would see no problem in continuing his spree. A symbiote would give him even more power, even more potential victims, and unlike basically every other host Eddie had met, Kassidy didn't have any particular issue with killing and eating his own prey. The idea of one of V's spawn imprinting on that kind of mind gave him chills. Nope, no thank you, that’s a nightmare Eddie never wants to face.

He found himself sincerely glad that LIFE had mostly just been an average, greedy sort of amoral, picking out low income but otherwise relatively harmless victims.

Except one, it looked like. This new guy, the one who supposedly hadn't taken well to the bonding. It was definitely possible that this wasn't the host Dawn and Leslie seemed to remember - Leslie had mentioned that the human half of that pairing had attempted suicide and escape in roughly equal parts. He'd been horrified by what he'd become, and honestly,  Eddie couldn't blame him.

With V, he had a partner,  someone who mostly knew what to expect of that partnership and even, sometimes, deigned to share the relevant details with him. 

Dawn hadn’t. Leslie hadn’t. The others, however many there had been - they hadn’t, either.

The greenish symbiote’s - presumably - new host was apparently not the LIFE Foundation's average subject. Unlike the late Dr. Skirth, they’d managed to avoid Eddie’s detection for a decent while, and when Venom had finally forced a confrontation, the short green guy had actually managed to lose them and  _ stay _ lost.

Yeah, this was definitely not Eddie's week.

**Eddie, why do we refer to Leslie as female?**

Oh, God  _ damn _ it.

_ Because it’d be rude as fuck not to? _

Eddie leaned back in the desk chair, glancing at the door. They could just hear the distant sound of Dawn and Leslie chatting, the muffled echo of simulated violence. Dawn had been entranced by the idea of video games, and it turned out Leslie was something of a nerd. “Agony” had literally just been her handle online, even. 

It wasn’t exactly like the walls of the apartment building were particularly thick, and they  _ knew _  Dawn could call for help if she felt threatened - so it was fine, but they still had a light pang of anxiety. Honestly,  _ they’d _ been the ones to get a broken leg ….

**But … she smells - incorrect. Her shape is off.** There wasn’t any particular judgement in V's tone, at least, which was better than Eddie’s father had ever managed.

_ “But she  _ **_is_ ** _ a woman,” _ he’d protested, not that it had mattered then, not that it mattered now.

Maybe he’d have more luck with V than he had with his father.  _ So, it’s like this. You know how you’re always on about humans being - uh, poorly designed? Inefficient? _

There was a sense of exasperation, because this was going to be one of  _ those _ explanations. Another absolutely ridiculous human thing to do with their genitals. They’d had more than a few such discussions. Like the fact that Eddie still had hangups about being  _ out, _ despite the fact that he knew who he was and tried to pretend he didn’t need outside validation.

**Yes, Eddie. Humans are very poorly designed. We have been doing research on this.**

Eddie wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know what that research was going to mean for them, later, but he put that out of his mind.

_ So, the short form is that gender isn’t nearly as simple as a binary that just works for breeding. It’s … not really something I figured you’d need the details on, love.  _ Genuinely; thus far, it just hadn't come up.

V formed, peeling out of his skin to cant their head to the side, a physical gesture to show that they were listening. These discussions tended to go better, they’d found, if Eddie talked, and then they asked whatever questions they still had.

_ So …  _ He tried to arrange his thoughts, inspecting the ceiling tiles. How had Dawn managed to support her entire weight on  _ that? _ He would have to ask her, later. Right now he was talking to V. Folding his hands behind his head, he closed his eyes.  _ So basically, sometimes, nature gets a little confused, and a woman gets a body that mostly reads male, or a man gets a body that mostly reads female. It’s relatively well-documented, you know? Happens everywhere. But it didn’t used to be very well accepted. _

Like being gay, or bi, or whatever the fuck Eddie actually was, now that he’d found himself sexually attracted to a fucking genderless space alien.

**And humans react violently, when things are not as they expect.**

Eddie sighed, nodded wearily.  _ Yeah, V. People get violent over those little discrepancies. _

His back ached with the memory.  _ “No son of mine … “ _

**So … how common is this - discrepancy?** V asked, their head swirling to the other side. They’d sensed this might be a sensitive topic, thankfully - and it had always been easier to communicate mind-to-mind.

He shrugged. _ I dunno, V, a lot of folk aren’t exactly open with it. There’s best-guess statistics online, we can look them up. The best option is to just accept that she is what she says she is, because she knows better than we do. _

**If her body is not - correct - for who she wishes to be ….** They considered. **Given training, our offspring could learn to fix it.**

Eddie blinked. Blinked again. Stared up at the ceiling. Blinked a third time, slowly processing the implications of that offer. Well fuck, that  _ was _ a hell of a lot better than his father, wasn’t it?

_ Yeah - that’s an offer I’d save for when we get to know each other better. Better to stick with the basics for now, yeah? A lot of trans folk are on hormones, we can look up side effects so you know what to look out for? _

They nodded, leaning up to nuzzle against Eddie’s cheek.  **This is a good plan. You are a good host. We love Eddie.**

_ Yeah, bud. We love you, too. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eddie's kind of a lapsed Christian.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things are complicated when Dawn wants simplicity.

Leslie was amazing. Over the course of a couple of hours, Dawn had helped her unpack several things, including a TV that was slightly larger than Eddie's, a computer, and a smaller computer for playing video games. 

Then, they sat down to actually play. 

Well, more accurately, Leslie sat down to play, and Dawn watched. 

The game was bloody, violent, brutal. Leslie played as a ‘huntress.’ Her character had a mask like a dog, or a rabbit - even a cat or a whole bear’s head, but Leslie said she'd have to pay for those, so she didn't have them. 

She also had an axe.

“So … you're hunting people?” Dawn asked the question as the black ‘load screen’ went away,  and the huntress began to sing. 

It was haunting, but pretty.

“Yeah, takes the edge off - feels good. I uh,  started playing this one more, after - oh, you  _ bitch _ , Meg!” Leslie's Other roused, the ‘snake’ watching with unblinking, pearlescent eyes. 

The screen had rolled crazily, when something hard and loud had crashed down on the Huntress, offering just a brief glimpse of prey and the sound of running feet. Sunny perked up too, sounding a trill of excitement in her bones. Hunting, chasing - they knew their purpose. It took entirely too long to smash the wooden  _ thing _ with a bare foot, but the woman was tall and broad-shouldered, kind of like Leslie herself. She had a weapon that was good for chopping things up, though - “Why not use the axe?”

“Hm? Don't have line of sight -  _ there _ we go,  c'mere, Meg - ” The Huntress reared back, and then let loose, her axe catching its target with a wet noise and a pained scream. “Fuck you,  Meg.” Abby, that was the name Leslie had picked for her Other, hissed, baring fangs. She - they - snapped at the screen in response to the simulated carnage.

Dawn watched, confused, as Leslie guided her character to walk to her target, picking her up. “Where did your axe go? If you're not gonna finish her, why did you hit her?”

In the end, one of the four victims escaped, a good match, by Leslie's estimate. The game was confusing, and the idea was that serial killers hunted normal people to serve them up to an evil god, so the evil god wouldn't punish them. As reasons went, she supposed she'd heard worse. 

“I dunno why it helps, but it does.  We like hunting, don't we?” She reached up to rub at the back of Abby's skull, smiling warmly. 

Dawn considered, then shrugged. “Predators, hunters. Meat is meat.”

“ ... Yeah, I uh, yeah.”

She didn’t really  _ get _ anything to do with her Other on the first go, but Dawn had a hunch that was actually honestly the normal,  _ sane _ reaction to it. And that was okay.

“Can, um - we would see if Abby is well, now.  After the medicine?” Dawn offered her hand, focusing. As she watched, sunlight poured from her skin, forming a sheath of gold to the elbow, sharp, wicked claws forming at the tips by habit. Sunny  _ was _ a hunter, and they refused to be entirely unarmed. 

Leslie stared for several long moments, before she nodded. “Yeah, sure, okay.”

Dawn touched Sunny's skin to Abby's, and a wash of ideas and knowledge flooded between them, shared wordlessly, in the span of a heartbeat. It was overwhelming, there was so much - oh, that was why the apple was important, okay - a ripping, tearing sensation inside of her skull, as Leslie tore herself away from the link. 

Abby coiled, protectively,  against her host's chest. Her, because Leslie could not tolerate any part of herself being anything less than feminine, and Abby yearned, desperately, to keep their bond.

If not for her own bond, Dawn might not have understood a love so selfless.

**_WHAT WRONG?_ **

Sunny had been excited to actually ‘speak’ to someone  _ like them _ ,  with a similar level of experience - V could be overwhelming for them. 

They knew something had gone wrong, something hurt, but not why. And it wasn't their fault. If anything, it was Dawn's fault, she was the bad one, not Sunny, never Sunny.

Dawn made an effort to calm herself - other people responded to calm, especially Sunny. “Why should it matter if you have a penis or not?” Her head felt - swimmy. Dizzy. That was unpleasant, and she would prefer not to repeat the experience, thanks all the same.

Sunny calmed, somewhat, though they were still unsteady, still upset. Back to square one, she supposed.

The other woman paled, visibly, swallowing, her throat bobbing up and down. “Because I didn’t share that shit with you. I barely fucking know you.” Her Other stirred, preparing to protect her from the threat she perceived. 

“Okay. I - we’re sorry. We didn’t mean to learn that. It - doesn’t bother us?” She held up her hands, placatingly. This didn't need to escalate any further, did it?

Leslie shook her head. “I'd like a little time to think - this is kind of a lot,  you know? I just got moved in, I've been kind of trying not to think too hard about all the shit that happened at the LIFE Foundation, and now - all this.”

She nodded.  What else could she do?

Leslie's door was easy to open. 

Their own door was not. 

Eddie had put the deadbolt up, and it was sort of heartwarming in an inconvenient kind of way that he’d developed that habit for her comfort. 

“Eddie? V?” She opened the door as far as she could. “... Scouting.”

It had been their word for what she'd been doing, and they'd understand. There was a muffled thump, a distant curse, and a low, rumbling chuckle. “You, uh, can let yourself in?”

“Yessir.”

A quiet yelp, another chuckle. “Don't call me that - !” 

“Yessir.” She grinned, closing the door. At least they were enjoying themselves. She wouldn't intrude on that; it made them happy.

She shouldn't go. 

She knew that. 

Venom was distracted, not thinking clearly, they couldn't come to her rescue, but then,  she was  _ Scream _ , wasn't she? She wasn't alone, never alone, and the meaning of their shared title wasn't lost on her. Her voice was a weapon, one particularly well-suited to fighting, well, people like her. 

So she planned for the worst, hoped for the best. If all went well, she'd go see Mrs. Chen, buy some chocolate, and nothing would happen. If not?

Well. Scream could handle ‘if not,’ probably better than her  _ prey _ could. 

**_HURT DAD,_ ** Sunny growled, a low, angry hum at the back of her mind. They'd been upset for a couple of hours now, and no amount of fake violence could sate their very real thirst for revenge. Dawn agreed, privately, but Eddie wouldn't have let them go. She couldn't say if V would - V recognized their shared power, but V was far too protective.  **_HUNT?_ **

The thought had her almost giddy. This creature  _ had _ hurt Dad, had shadowed her steps. They were a threat, and she was a weapon. That made things simple. She liked simple, a clear path opening before her.

_ Yes, _ she agreed.  _ We hunt. _

Clear, easy to understand, actionable.

If she didn't want into Leslie's pants in the first place, why should it matter what parts she had inside of them? She was a woman, she was a friend, and that was the shape of it. 

To be fair,  Dawn had come to expect that everyone else knew everything, that she had no secrets, which was sort of okay, because she didn't need many. Sunny was a secret, though, nobody could know because people would be afraid, and they would make things muddy. They'd make it unclear.

And for once in her life, things were blessedly, beautifully clear. There, in front of Mrs. Chen's shop, posing as a homeless man in three jackets too many, with a large dog on a leash. The feel of their Other was vivid to Sunny, and they yearned to lash out.  _ Not yet, not yet. _

“Change?” His voice was a bit of a rasp, and he rattled a few coins in a mostly empty coffee can. His impression was good, he was a decent actor. His costume was too nice, though, too clean. He didn't smell of anything, really, except blood.

She offered her hand, just beneath the dog's nose, letting it scent her. Very important. She'd been bitten before she learned, but it was easy enough to fit her mind inside the shape of a dog. They smelled things to understand the depth of the world around them, which was why most dogs would react with panic at the first sniff of Sunny, rather than tentatively lick her palm. 

“What is it you  _ really _ want from us, please.” She scratched behind the dog’s ears, keeping her voice low and pleasant because it wasn't a fight, not yet. 

And the strange man smiled. He was a new face, a pleasant-looking blond-ish man, with soft blue eyes, a beard that had been shaven not long ago, and teeth that were  _ also _ too clean for a homeless person. Dawn would know. “The people I work for just want you back, Dawn.They want to learn from you, want to help you, help us. If you come quietly, this doesn't have to go badly.”

“Thank you. We prefer honesty.” She smiled,  running her fingers through the dog's short fur, feeling the low thrum of the Other beneath its skin. Why the dog? Why not, she supposed. “In honesty, then: no, thank you. We are done with cages.” She showed her teeth in a smile that was polite, rather than friendly, going to stand. 

The dog whined, resting its head on its paws. Thick ropes of green shot outward from its skin, snapping toward them, narrowly missing her arms. She'd almost learned this melody already, it wouldn't be terribly difficult to improvise the dance.

But she didn't know it in full, not yet. It was late, the street mostly empty, and she wanted  _ pain _ . 

The dog growled, its form changing first, wrapping itself in greenish silk, as it stood. The ‘leash’ trailed back and up. The short man didn't grow terribly much. Was that true for all of Sunny's siblings? There was barely enough of the green mass for the man and dog, and the - tentacles, right. 

She jumped backwards, and as she landed, gold and red billowed out from within her skin. 

Her fangs bared in a grin, because this  _ was _ so much simpler, wasn't it? 

A tentacle lashed out, trying to strike her, and she countered with one of her own, a cluster of red because it was stronger. The tendrils met with a harsh note, a rhythm forming with each crack, each deflected blow. Her opponent was testing her defenses, but that was fine, she was feeling out the notes of their demise. She'd never done this quite on purpose, not to a  _ person _ , and for once, she wasn't afraid. Everything made sense. 

**_HURT YOU,_ ** Sunny jeered, inside her own head because one, two, three, one, two, three,  like dancing except for the consequences, and one of her ‘partners’ wrapping around behind them, the tendrils closing in from all sides,  wrapping around her body, holding her tight for one, claustrophobic moment, and  _ there _ , the note sang crystal clear in her mind.

She opened her mouth to join the chorus, the piercing trill that echoed within the mass of inky emerald twined about her limbs. A dog's whine came first, then a human scream, and the tendrils squeezed with force that should have crushed a lesser being, but she was  _ Scream _ , and she could survive worse. She had survived worse, and come out better. 

The mass shook itself apart, writhing violently before exploding, splattering on the ground, on the front window, on the walls - and then Dawn had to breathe, because it was the motion of air that let her sing. 

**“We - said - no.”** Green coalesced into a shuddering orb, latching onto the human who quickly began to scramble away.  **“Do not return,”** she warned them, with a hint of a fond smile for the fleeing hound. It had been a good dog, and she could appreciate the beauty of it, even if it wasn't super friendly. 

**_YEAH! GO!_ **

“That is a hell of a tapeworm, huh? You here to buy?” Mrs. Chen hid her shock well, truly. Her hands only trembled a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They've been wanting to do that ever since they found out Eddie was hurt, honestly. 
> 
> The game is Dead by Daylight. I find it entertaining enough at the early ranks, but the community isn't always amazing. Go figure. 
> 
> Playing a game about hunting people is probably good stimulation for a predator, though!


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dawn adopts a dog.

It was only after they finished with Eddie that V realized what Dawn had meant.

Eddie caught on to what the problem was at about the same time they did, and their shared adrenaline pushed them to wakefulness. They preferred to bask in the afterglow, but this was more important.

**Stupid child, stupid overconfident child.**

_ Is she, though? _ Eddie remembered the raw pain of her  _ scream _ \- the scream -  _ Oh, fuck _ .

The note was echoing from nearby. Not so near that it hurt them, not quite, but the deadly intensity of it was a vicious reminder that it was well within Scream’s power to simply kill any Klyntar they met.

_ Good thing she likes us. _

The note cut short, and they resumed their bounding gait, rushing toward the sound.

**_Motion, running, prey._ **

It came in a sense of their own essence, but separate, their offspring, a sense of fear radiating from the green symbiote. It sloshed against its human’s chest, and they grinned, because the human was fleeing blindly, blood dripping from his ears. Their offspring had abandoned him.

And he didn’t know it yet.

They lashed out with a rush of their own essence, a band of blackness snatching his ankle. He fell, facefirst, the symbiote escaping his hold, skittering across the ground, swirling over to latch desperately onto the hound, who backed away, growling, low. It snapped its teeth at the human, before turning away, fleeing the scene. 

That was fine, the human was their first target. 

Venom landed on the man with a crunch of bone, a weak cry of pain escaping him.  **“Warned you,”** they growled, and their fangs snapped down, severing his spine with one sharp bite.

**“Damn. And here** **_I_ ** **wanted** to do that.” 

She stepped out from an alley, clapping quietly as her Other melted away, forming into the shape of a large, violet snake that coiled around her chest and shoulders.

A low, rumbling growl escaped them, as they crouched over their kill. She held up her hands. “I was following Dawn - I had a hunch she was about to do something stupid.”

Venom scowled, but reached down, fishing through the bad man's things.  **“Catch,”** they growled, tossing a thick wallet at Leslie.

To her credit, she did.

“So, uh, what do you -  _ oh, ew.” _

Their jaws tore up the body in two easy gulps. 

Couldn't leave evidence, Eddie would sift through the man's things, later. Zippers and buttons and the odd mechanisms of the ‘radio’ were all crushed, but held, they had a use, a plan. Everything else broke down, as they worked on it - they'd even started learning how to work with plastic. They stalked over to Leslie, snatching the wallet back from fingers that had apparently fallen numb.  **“Thanks.”**

And then they ducked into the darkness, a shadow among shadows, seeking - finding. 

There, back in the direction of Mrs. Chen's shop. V wove darkness around them, bending the light in a way Eddie’s mind couldn't quite grasp, blending in to the night, at least for the humans who might have relied on sight alone. 

_ We can do that? _

**If need be.**

And they  _ did _ need, because things weren't finished, not yet. 

_ Hold up, look. _

**“... what.”**

Venom emerged from the darkness, staring at the scene. Dawn was petting the hound, a large, vicious-looking creature, a proper predator,  unlike so many of the yapping purse-dwellers.

_ Pit bull, _ Eddie identified the breed. It had gained some notoriety for its willingness to kill, despite Eddie’s mind confirming that as an exaggeration at best. There were far too many idiots littering his profession, that had been his opinion then, it remained so now. Still, that was a very large dog, and he had no idea whether or not it was friendly. V figured that Scream would have dealt with the animal differently, if it had been trying to harm them.

This particular pit bull was rolling on its back, tongue lolling out, as Dawn rubbed its - his - belly. “Good, good boy, good friend, didn't want to hurt you, not either one, no.” She had her face worryingly close to its maw, to the powerful jaws that could maul a human if they chose. 

Green had mixed with gold, their tendrils woven together.  **“What are you - ”**

“Shh, they're good, good boys, yes they are, didn't want their bad human. Just a disguise, roadkill, but useful, they didn't mean any bad.” She murmured this into the hound's side, and it whined up at Venom with innocent joy, its entire hind end wriggling. “The bad man killed this good boy for protecting his human, killed his human, and then he made his Other bring just this one back. They don't want to hurt anybody.”

Mrs. Chen cleared her throat. “Kibble is cheaper than steak, you know?” Which explained the discarded packaging, as well as the scent of blood lingering on the animal, who was licking his jaws with satisfaction. 

V was lost. Eddie was lost. What were they supposed to do?  There was a hint of suspicion at the back of their shared consciousness, that Dawn wasn't going to accept a ‘no,’ here.

“I read the lease,” Leslie's voice sounded from behind Venom. “No pets allowed. I uh … take it she knows about you?” Her hand came out in a sweeping gesture, to encompass Mrs. Chen. They realized, belatedly, that they were still ‘in costume,’ still towering over everyone else - still monstrous, to human eyes.

_ Not my eyes, big guy - but uh, probably should pack it in.  _

**“She does,”** they replied, slowly, deliberately dissolving their bonded form. There was nothing their offspring could do that they could not, save for the things that, okay, yeah, they literally could not do. 

Mrs. Chen, for her part, looked over Leslie and groaned, covering her face with a hand. “Eddie, I told you, you cannot adopt more kids!”

“More like stepkids, Mrs. Chen,” he said, stepping in to the void V had left almost seamlessly. They’d only remained inert for a moment before the exchange of control completed - good. Progress, practice. They were partners, after all. “This is, uh, Leslie, and you know Dawn, and Dawn, we  _ can’t  _ afford a dog.”

She snuggled in against the hound, because she had already made up her mind. It was funny: Eddie knew the battle was lost, but still felt compelled to fight it, anyway.   
  
“Is a lie, a bad lie, because the bad people paid Eddie for the hurt they caused.” She pressed her face into the hound’s fur, rubbing at his neck and sides, now. “Should ask Anne to make them pay us for the hurt they caused  _ us. _ Said they would pay. Didn’t pay. Then we would have more money, and then nobody would tell us we could not care for a friendly stray dog.”

Mrs. Chen burst out laughing, shaking her head. “I’m going back inside, Eddie. We have dog food for when you lose.”

“... So uh … ” Leslie looked between Eddie, the dog, and Dawn. “Not gonna lie, I figured I’d be beating that guy off you with a stick, kid.”

Dawn looked up at Leslie, fire swirling in her eyes. Leslie gasped, a sharp inhale, and Dawn shook her head, the fire receding only slightly. Flames of gold still lapped at the edges, but her normal, green tone was visible at the center. “We told you, we are stronger together.”

**Confident. Perhaps … not so misplaced.**

V was uncertain how to feel of this development. They were proud, yes - but also - concerned?

“Look, there was a lot of shit that got ‘said’ in about five seconds, and I haven’t had a chance to go through any of it.” She folded her arms, blowing a stray lock of pink hair out of her face. “So pretend you didn’t, and go over it  _ out loud _ .”

Human language was so inconvenient. “Hey, uh - girls? Can we - you know.” Eddie gestured back the way they’d come. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but there’s a good chance that somebody reported the, uh, disturbance. How about we move this along so nobody thinks to ask  _ us _ any questions, maybe?”

Dawn pulled back slightly from the hound, her hair reluctantly uncoiling from the greenish tendrils, which receded, drawing inside its skin. She looked up, frowning. “Need food. Dog food, for a good dog.”

This time, it was Leslie’s turn to laugh.

**We could eat the police. That is an option.**

_ No, V, it’s really not. _

They sent the sense of ‘pouting,’ a false, accusatory tone in their voice.  **No fun, Eddie. Buy the dog food, it can shelter itself, yes?**

_ Not you, too. _

“Fine, since I’m clearly outnumbered here, I’ll buy the dog food. You two - three - go on home - and he’s not allowed inside, understand?  _ No pets.” _

An exuberant note of joy escaped her, causing Eddie, Leslie,  _ and _ the hound to flinch, as she threw herself at Eddie, wrapping her arms around him. A sense of raw, unrelenting happiness washed away the worst of their shared pain, her gratitude overwhelming the last of Eddie’s objections. “You can stay! Come, please?” She beckoned, and the hound stood, following at her heels with a spring in its step.

_ I guess, at least we won’t have to worry about vet fees. _ He sighed, loudly, lingering at the doorway. “You want anything?” He asked Leslie, who hadn’t moved yet.

“Wouldn’t say no to some fucking answers, but I’m good - uh, thanks.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eddie thought he was the head of this household, but no. No he is not.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eddie's mental illness didn't just go away.

The next day came sooner than Eddie would have liked, and yet, his phone said it was after noon. He felt like shit, though, worn down and - low.  _ Damn it. _

He hadn’t missed this, had thought it would just go away, but that’s the thing, he’s always been followed by this cloud of misery. Sometimes, it was better, sometimes it was worse. He was a loser, after all, and he knew it. Venom knew it. The only person who didn’t seemed to be Dawn, herself, and he felt guilty, a bit, for lying to her, except that he hadn’t lied, he’d just not really made a point of making sure she knew the truth.

**Eddie.**

He opened his eyes, slowly, blearily, trying - really trying - to pull himself out of this fog. He didn’t want to poison V with this shit, V didn’t deserve it.

**Ed-dieee. Know you aren’t sleeping, Eddie.**

The darkness crawled out of his skin, materializing behind him, connected by their joined hands. 

_ Sorry, V. _

**Your brain tastes sour,** V murmured, running their tongue against his cheek.  **We are - sorry. Brains are - more complicated than we thought.**

_ You do something? _ He’d been kind of worried that they might try to fix this side of him. It would be far too easy to make things worse, that was his suspicion.

**No, Eddie. Too much risk.**

This was just his stupid brain being stupid, then. He groaned, curling into the pillows. Guilt rattled through their link, because V was convinced there was something they should be able to do, to fix it. And, well, there wasn’t. That was the cruel part.

_ Not your fault, love. Never your fault. _

V wrapped their entire form around him, thick tendrils of warm comfort.  **Want to fix you, Eddie.**

_ Humans are dumb, that’s all it is. _ He sighed, thinking about how they should get some food, how he needed to pretend he could function. V was hungry, probably - he  _ was _ hungry, he just couldn’t think of anything that sounded edible.  _ It happens. You know that. _

V nuzzled against him.  **Here with you, Eddie. Want you well.** They paused, looking to the open door to their bedroom - the microwave dinged, alerting him to the fact that someone was cooking.  **We asked Dawn to make food so you would not have to.**

Warmth closed around his heart and squeezed, a reminder that he wasn’t alone, that there were people who understood, who wouldn’t judge him for being a little bit too tired to do even the most basic shit, and while it didn’t make everything better, it helped enough that he was sitting upright, supported by his Other, by the time Dawn brought the plate in. 

It smelled good, smelled edible, and he smiled, gratefully, as she sat down next to him. “V says you’re having a bad day?” She passed the plate over, her voice warm, encouraging.

And God, it was all he could do not to cry. Sitting there in his boxers, not even showered, barely strong enough to get out of bed, and he was choking back tears because she was showing him kindness, compassion, that he felt like he didn’t deserve. He was a  _ monster _ , wasn’t he? He killed, he fought, he brutalized and  _ ate _ his enemies, for fuck’s sake.

**“Dawn,”** V murmured, drawing Eddie up against their side.  **“Eddie is good, yes? Good to us? To you?”** They shifted him slightly, so that he could see her reaction.

She blinked, processing - then nodded, once, seeming to realize - something. “Eddie is good,” she confirmed, smiling. “The Watchers said that Eddie would throw us away, would be like Father, or the LIFE people. And they were wrong, because Eddie is good.”

**We eat bad people, people like her parents, not people like her. Not innocents.**

And then the tears started, because he could feel the love, the warmth of how much he meant to V, and he buried his face into the sculpted, almost-human warmth of the chest they’d created, the prepackaged sandwich still uneaten.

Dawn reached out, gently patting his leg, and there was a soothing melody in her mind, sunlight in her heart, and a woman’s voice that he didn’t recognize, but it sounded like a wordless lullabye. Warmth, affection. Eddie was important to her, as well. The first human to show true kindness, the first good friend, the first real family.  _ Family, _ a concept as alien to him as it had been to her, and yet here they were, working it out, together.

Sunny was there, uncertain but supportive. They knew sometimes humans just got too full of emotion, and then they had to let it out - that had been Dawn’s explanation, probably. For their part, they reminded him that if not for Eddie, they would never have met V, and Dawn would be  _ dead. _ Nobody would be happy, then.

So, yeah, he cried. 

He could admit that he needed it. The sandwich got a bit chilly, and eventually, Dawn pulled away, to go reheat it. She was still humming that lullabye to herself as she cooked the food - where had she even heard it?

**The game, from last night. Sunny enjoyed it.**

They sent him a - what, third-hand? - memory: a woman in a rabbit’s mask, with a tomahawk, and the screams of struggling victims, and the eerie, haunting melody. O- _ kay _ then.

He ate the sandwich, this time. Between the two - three - of them, they managed to convince him that if he let himself rest, they wouldn’t burn the apartment down.

V tucked him in, and Dawn hugged him, gently. He was okay, just a bit worn out.

 

* * *

 

The wind ripped at his hair,  at his clothes, but he'd done it,  he'd kicked Drake off the edge, and without a host, Riot wasn't much of a threat, not really. They’d die, alone and gasping.

He turned his back on that ledge,  desperately trying not to think of the terrible height,  the consequences if he took one false step -

\- and then metal that  _ wasn't _ metal, not really,  pierced his chest, opening his heart to fresh air. Blood sprayed down his front, and he had the vague thought that he'd  _ liked _ that shirt.

He woke,  and they were running, all fours, bounding up, up,  _ up _ , with Venom's unique gait tearing at the side of the rocket. 

The memory of their last goodbye, _goodbye_ **_Eddie._**

**Eddie - Eddie!**

A jolt of adrenaline shot him to waking, his heart fluttering wildly. 

**We're okay. Okay.** They coiled around him in a tight hug, tendrils crawling over every inch of his skin,  wrapping him in their essence.  **Memory. Past. We healed you, healed us.**

_ Can't be an us if there's no you,  V. _

He remembered the lonely week that followed, the binge of food that he assumed was just to comfort his broken heart, the elation when they first called him a pussy for moping. After all, they'd been there the whole time. 

And he remembered how weak their voice had sounded that first night.

**Never leave you, Eddie.** They rumbled, their voice rolling against his bones, purring in the space between his breaths.  **Never again.**

They stroked his hair, his skin, caressing every part of him, inside and out. 

 

* * *

 

When he woke, though, he woke to pain, the acrid smell of smoke. 

They’d made it to the living room - where was Dawn? - before the first piercing shriek of the fire alarm hand unwoven Venom around his sleeping body.

V was trying so, so hard to remain glued to his bones, and they might have managed to remain except for the persistence of the fire alarm. Every pulse rattled them until  _ we _ became  _ I _ , until V was split from him in a rolling wash of agony. 

Pain melted into darkness,  loneliness, isolation, and a bitter cold that did not respond to the warmth of the fire. 

There was no Venom, in that moment, only Eddie Brock, and he reached for his Other, vision swimming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't the first time V's had to coach Eddie through something like this.
> 
> Usually it ends better than that.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the worst is come.

The flame had come suddenly, engulfing the building, and if they had been inside, they might have been captured as well.

But they weren't. They had been outside, in the alley, to see if Lasher - or their host - needed anything. The men had come from that way,  with their heavy boots and heavy weapons. Sunny had learned the secret of invisibility from Venom, and they’d climbed halfway up the wall before realizing that their friend couldn't follow.

The gun had been special, projecting a shriek at an almost-inaudible pitch. A human might not have even registered it, much less found it painful. It struck the hound before he could respond. The symbiote was splattered against the wall, knocked free of its host for the second time in as many days.

She hissed, silently, vowing revenge, and Sunny howled their incoherent rage at the back of her skull. They wanted to hunt, but she had no way of knowing how many humans had come - they didn't have enough information to make a move.  _ Not yet. _

The entire vehicle radiated heat. The alley wasn't the least filthy in the city,  and the scent of gasoline flooded their shared senses. For all they could tell, the van was packed with soldiers,  all with the logo of the LIFE Foundation emblazoned on their gear. So, she told Sunny  _ no, not yet, _ and they waited. 

The men collected the dog and the symbiote separately.  One was placed in a glass tube, the other, a travelling cage, far too small for the animal's body. Both of them were so dazed that they could barely respond.

As she slowly, silently descended onto the roof of the van, she kept low. They hadn't given LIFE the answer the company wanted. It seemed likely these men were here to take it by force, and - she hissed at the scent of smoke, the first shrilling note of the fire alarm.

V would  _ hate _ that. 

Dawn - no,  _ Scream _ \- made a point of affixing herself to the roof of the van with dozens of tendrils as well as her hands, knees, and feet. It took much of Sunny's focus to keep them steady like that, to bond their essence to the surface so she wouldn't be dislodged. They'd figured out that multiple points of contact were best, to distribute their weight more effectively.  

The red tendrils were stronger, so they got priority in clinging to the roof. The gold ones had more dexterity - with intense concentration, she could convince Sunny to shuffle her cell phone out of her pocket. A text to Anne - she would need help. The gold tendrils offered just enough pressure, reacting just enough to the screen for her to send the message, before she turned the phone off and tucked it away, inside of Sunny, who cradled it close to her chest.

Eddie would be upset by a lot of things.  She would prefer not to add misplacing her phone to the list. 

So, then she waited. It ached, the waiting, the yearning to rip and tear. 

The Eye called her a coward,  leaving her friends to die, but she didn't trust that an untrained, untested youth and her immature Other were going to be able to take all of these men. What if they had fire? No, better to wait. She soothed Sunny with the memory of the lullabye and the anticipation of the hunt. 

Against a single human, one at a time, they would have the advantage. They just had to wait. 

A few minutes at most saw the humans’ mission completed. Eddie, V, Leslie, and Abby, all contained, all separate, all incapable of fighting back. The separation was something she would have found unbearable.  _ One more sin. They will pay. _

_ But not yet.  _

They wanted living specimens to study. 

There was a brief flurry of discussion, because Dawn was missing. It would have been funny, except that they were all within touching distance,  wrapped in helmets and body armor and it would be so easy, so very easy, for this to end poorly. But they used *their* eyes, not the eyes of a Klyntar, so they were blind to her, blind to Sunny, blind to the danger they were in. 

“Send another team to scour the area. These specimens are volatile; we need to get them into containment as soon as possible.”

Was ‘volatile’ the word you used, to describe the certainty that they'd eat your face as soon as they escaped? A violent reaction was not just likely, but inevitable.

The van began to move,  and it was all they could do to hang on.

The first bug Sunny decided to consume was kind of gross, but it struck their skin with bruising force. By the time the van slowed at the checkpoint, Dawn had zoned out, ignoring the occasional spikes of pain, and Sunny had consumed more insects than they could count. 

_ No one saw? _ The humans inside the van didn't seem worried. Bored, a bit impatient, but not worried,  not really. The humans at the checkpoint, as well.

Sunny’s voice was content, the bugs having given them a small, but steady stream of protein.  **_NO ONE._ **

_ Good. _ She smiled, in spite of herself. So easy to please.  _ Thank you. _

Impatience rolled, a shared undercurrent between them.   **_HUNT NOW?_ **

_ Not just yet. _ She needed to know the layout,  needed to know where the vulnerabilities lay, what defenses needed to be overcome. 

Hunger rumbled inside of them, a reminder they hadn't consumed their ‘medication.’ The memory of their first kill almost had her drooling, but she pushed it back.  **_SOON?_ **

_ Soon, _ she confirmed. Soon, they'd turn this hellish facility into a banquet. 

The Eye Unstuck From Time whispered to her, plastered across the quickly-retreating perimeter.  _Murderer._

_Gladly._ She smiled, grimly. 

Dawn didn't hate lightly, but in this case? She'd make an exception. 

The van rolled inside of a secure tunnel, and for a moment, she debated - but only a moment. Releasing all of her anchors, she used dozens of the gold tendrils to catch the low ceiling, swinging herself up, over. Sunny's reflexes helped, ensuring that they could catch themselves. The van was moving slowly, but not slowly enough that it didn't make some distance. That was sort of the point. 

She couldn't do this without Sunny, and they couldn't do anything in a cage. 

They couldn't afford capture, not here, not now. 

A tall, broad-shouldered man in a lab coat arrived, moving with brisk efficiency. He was trailed by a smaller man in the same armored outfit the rest of the - soldiers? Were they soldiers?  **_Prey,_ ** Scream decided - the rest of the  _ prey _ wore, but he was not prey. He had a symbiote bond, oil swimming in his veins, muddy and dark. 

Scream clung tighter to the ceiling, knowing that, unmasked, the not-prey likely couldn't  _ know _ , but concerned all the same. His head turned in their direction, as if sensing her presence, but he seemed to dismiss the feeling, saying nothing. 

“You have them?” Lab Coat asked the prey in the van. More words were exchanged, but Scream lost the thread as the doors opened and their friends were dragged, still too dazed to truly resist, from the van. 

Leslie tried, at least. She fought, weakly, screaming obscenities and kicking until the man with oil in his veins slapped her across the face. Her head rocked to the side for a moment, and then she sneered, spitting on his boot. He kicked her in the ribs,  and what strength she'd retained drained out of her. 

How like their friend. She had more bravado than brains, but Dawn wished for half so much courage for Scream. Sunny growled at the mistreatment - righteous fury would do,  as a substitute. 

Eddie didn't have that kind of fight in him. His brain was sick, still, and V was the only thing keeping him anchored. He mumbled a weak note,  something that sounded kind of like a miserable ‘fuck off,’ before being hauled out of the van by two of the prey, one for his arms, one for his legs. 

The kennel required another two prey, and a loud, animal whine escaped.

Lab Coat scowled, inspecting the kennel.  “What is this?”

“Johnson is presumed dead. Codename: Lasher was found bonded to a stray dog.” The prey quickly moved to set the kennel down beside Eddie and Leslie. 

“Ugh,” Lab Coat responded. “I suppose I did order you to bring their current hosts. Very well,  transfer the hosts to their individual cells, and prepare the symbiotes for transfer.”

Lab Coat and oil-for-blood led the others to a door, then. Oil-for-blood, his Other swirling, unsettled, sent one last glance in their direction, before stepping through. 

Dawn followed. She couldn't be seen,  of course - but nobody ever thought to look up. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
> 
> I seem to have come down with a case of plot!


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which isolation is the cruelest torture of all.

Without Eddie, V lost all semblance of cohesion.

For the first piece of eternity, there was a dull,  distant heat, and the constant pulsing of agony as the shrill noise of the fire alarm repeatedly hammered the same lethal note. 

Then, there was structure, and just enough silence to protect them - at the cost of their freedom. The ‘structure’ was containment, a cylinder that barely contained their mass. They'd fed well, with Eddie, well enough they might even spawn again soon. Naturally, this time. Earth was home to enough resources to sustain them, comfortably. It was just the way of things, that they should grow larger, until part of them split off.

They hadn't told Eddie yet.

When they reunited, they would tell Eddie.

At first, it was easy to treat that as a given. Eddie would find them by the threads that tore away when they were separated. Eddie loved V, and V loved Eddie, and they would be whole again. If Eddie did not find them, they could regain their strength, and they would find Eddie.

They would be whole, one being with two parts, inseparable.  _ I _ would become  _ we, _ and they would do better, this time. 

The cylinder was barely large enough to contain their mass. They rolled against the inside, agitated. Hunger tore at them. They needed, and Eddie was unable to provide. He was near, and they had no reason to doubt that he wanted to help them, so the only logical reason he would not help them was that he  _ could _ not help them. 

Was it that his brain was sick? 

No. 

Dimly, now that the awful noise had passed, they could perceive the world beyond their cage. Other hosts, empty hosts, held Eddie captive, still clothed in the shorts he wore to sleep. He was sick, and they yearned to reach out, to soothe his pain. 

He was unwell. The separation had been agony for them, and they knew, from his memory, that it was equally painful for him. 

They couldn't fully comprehend how badly it must have hurt him, but he wasn't moving, so likely, it was bad. The distant shreds of their essence assured them that he was not dead, but they couldn't sense anything more than that, not really. 

The last time they had been separated, they had not been bonded so tightly. They had not been a part of each other. 

Venom was their reality, now. They had achieved perfect symbiosis, two halves of a flawless whole. There were disagreements, moments they still bickered, but between them, there was nothing that they could not handle. Venom was inseparable, and Venom was a bond so deep they could not  _ be _ without one another. Without Eddie, there was no V. Without V, they feared, there would be no Eddie. 

How badly was he hurt? 

The second piece of eternity was spent agonizing over Eddie, their beloved host, the other half of their being. Klyntar weren't meant to live in isolation, and when the cylinder settled into its new home, locked within another, larger,  squarish chamber, then they were left alone. 

V had not needed a sense of time before arriving on Earth. Things happened in linear fashion. Time passed as it pleased. They hadn't known boredom because boredom was a human construct - they would have patience, because there was nothing else. Humans loved activity, they thrived on it. Give a human an empty room with a handful of miscellaneous objects, and in search of stimulation, the human would create an intricate series of tasks to occupy themself with.

This quality was especially prominent in Eddie Brock, and so V had never lacked for something to do when their host was awake. 

Now, with the predictable rhythms of human life etched into their mind,  it was torture to not know how long they'd been captive. They couldn't perceive how much time passed in silence, and the absence of stimulation felt horribly stifling after they'd been bonded for so long. The humans had never truly seen their people as people, and why would they? 

To Riot and the corrupted  _ others _ , the ones who had been twisted as V had once been twisted, the Klyntar were supreme. Their hosts were little more than chattel.

No one spoke to them. No one acknowledged them. A large host, an empty, unfilled vessel, checked their status, but already, they knew that words had begun to slip from their grasp. So much of what they knew was encoded upon their host. 

Symbiosis was the best choice, and they still believed that. Practically, as well as morally, a true symbiosis let them spend as long as they needed to make  _ both _ of them - perfect. 

Physically,  anyway. 

Eddie had already been perfect in the sense of compatibility. They loved Eddie. His smile, his voice, the person inside of his body was perfect for them. Humans were inefficient by nature, and they  _ could _ improve upon his body. They had plans for that, they could improve his muscles, grow additional nerves, form more connections - they were acting slowly, because time didn't matter to them, and Eddie would always be there for them. 

They would ensure this fact, because Eddie mattered. 

So, when his cells created new aberrations, they repaired the damage caused by time. When the harsh light of the nearby star burned his skin, they undid that damage, too.

They'd learned more about the way humans processed toxins. While it was admirable in its efficiency - possibly one of the few things beyond their natural resiliency that made humans, as a species, unique among their previous hosts - the more concentrated poisons still caused harm as they passed.

Eddie enjoyed those poisons, so they let him experience them. When the damage was done, they undid it. 

Nothing would take Eddie away from them for long, they had to believe that. They worked hard to ensure that it was true. This, too, would pass, in time. 

The third piece of eternity saw them descending into madness. 

Time passed, though not much. Probably.  They were pretty sure not much time had passed. It can't have been long, no longer than a night, surely not, but they could not be certain. There was nothing in this room to measure against, and less outside of it that they could perceive. 

A prey creature was loosed into their cylinder. They drained it, discarding the carcass.

It was not Eddie.

They would not bond with the prey. It was demeaning, demoralizing, worthless. 

They'd adapted to oxygen-rich environments. They didn't need  _ a _ host to survive;  they needed  _ their _ host to  _ live _ .

Eddie was still alive, but more removed from them, now. It was a bit more effort to maintain those distant tendrils, but it was a necessary, vital effort. They had to know that Eddie was alive. They couldn't quite feel his heartbeat, but the sense of him hadn't faded. 

They had to be ready to find him. 

When they did, they could be Venom again.  _ I _ could be  _ we _ , and  _ we _ was always better than  _ I. _

Not long after that, they wished for the rabbit. 

Its carcass had been removed, the withered shell carefully extracted, offering no chance at escape. They should have bonded with the rabbit. Without anything to occupy their low level processes, they were quickly losing sight of what it was to be a person. 

They couldn't have formed a lasting bond with the rabbit. Klyntar were predators; they required meat. An herbivore was, by nature, a poor match. 

They knew that. 

But it would have given them something to do, and for the rabbit's short life, it could have helped them hold onto themself.

Because they were slipping. 

They sensed for their offspring, giving a halfhearted effort toward searching out the others. Seeing that they were stable, though, their attention returned to the only entity they cared about.

Eddie was not so distant, but for all their power, he might have been on another world. 

They held onto V for as long as they could. 

In the silence, that wasn't long at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. I made a sad.
> 
> I hope everyone had a good feast day! Try not to get trampled out there!
> 
> To my non-American viewers, I hope your Thursday went well and your Friday is also pleasant!


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eddie is literally incapable of suppressing the urge to snark.

Eddie had gone quietly. 

It was uncharacteristic, for him. He rarely shut up, even - especially - when things were going wrong. And this was about as wrong as things could go, he was pretty sure. 

V had tried to hold on. Eddie never saw the fire that set the alarm off. He had blacked out, on the floor, and he remembered thinking that this was probably one of the worse ways he could think of, to die alone, to let V down like that. 

By the time he realized that he was being manhandled into a car, his wrists locked together by the fanciest handcuffs he'd ever worn -  _ usually, people buy me dinner before we get to the kinky shit _ \- it was too late to fight. His heart had a V-shaped hole hollowed out of it, and the depressive low had returned with interest. So he didn't voice his wisecracks. He didn't struggle much. 

He just stared, miserably, across the van at the box that held his beloved and two of their offspring. Only two. 

Where was Dawn? She would be worried, probably. But hadn't she been with the mutt? Something didn't add up, and his mind was moving through mud, trying and failing to put together the pieces. 

Leslie didn't make it terribly easy to think, but she made up for his apathy in spite.

It took three of them to haul her into the van, kicking, screaming, and biting at any opportunity. Her mouth dripped blood, and she spat a chunk of cloth and skin onto the floor next to her bruised face. 

“Guess I shoulda known they caughd you with your pands down.” Her nose was crooked,  a raccoon mask of bruising forming across her cheeks. “Guess dese fuggers don’ unnerstand, ‘no means no.'”

Eddie offered a bitter smile. “Seems like.”

She went to say something else, but Eddie looked up, in the direction of the cab. She followed his gaze, falling silent. Someone was talking, giving orders. 

Dawn hadn't been captured. She’d been a target, but she'd escaped their notice. 

_ Is that your doing, V? _

There was no reply. 

Leslie filled the ride with creative descriptions of what their captors might do with their blood relatives, various household objects, and a goat. Eddie was a bit impressed, honestly, both with the range of her vocabulary, and the dedication to originality that some of those barbs suggested. This tirade was  _ inspired _ , and he made a note of some of the choice phrases for use the next time he was feeling, well,  ‘uncooperative.’

“You should have agreed to talk,” one of the thugs grunted, stomping a heavy boot into her stomach for a moment's peace. “Do you think we  _ want _ to have to kidnap you?”

Leslie looked to Eddie, not offering a reply. “You got anything you want to say,  _ Mr. Brock?” _

“Me? Nah, you seem to have it covered, though I think you have it wrong about the goat. You're implying that this guy - ” He nodded at the fellow with his boot on her ribs, “ - is a top,  and that's just not the case. He'd be under the goat.”

Leslie barked a painful laugh, and then it was Eddie's turn to get his shit kicked in. Apparently, they took offense. Go figure. 

 

* * *

 

So, this was sort of familiar, sort of not.  Last time, he'd been in an office, not a glorified fishbowl, and he'd had significantly more clothing. 

He was in a smallish, glassy box, with a cot. Unlike Dawn's memory, this cell was inside a bigger room, and there were no other cells in sight. One side of the glass box was completely dedicated to various readouts and charts. Some were kind of familiar, things like heart rate and blood pressure. There was even a detailed, full-body image of him. At least, he assumed the pulsing, skinless humanoid was  _ meant _ to be his insides. 

He had to admit, it could be anybody - unlike V, Eddie didn't know what his own liver looked like. But why would these readings be posted outside his cell if they weren't about him? 

Eddie didn't really speak “doctor,” but he assumed, medically speaking, he looked like shit, on account of the fact he felt like shit. It stood to reason that his body wasn't lying to him about the amount of bruises, and he could  _ see _ the fractured rib, right there, on the scan. 

There was something else in the scan, though. Something that brought a rush of hope to his heart, irrational as it felt. 

He saw little patches of darkness inside of his body, as it was portrayed on the screen, ever moving, too small to be much of anything. They flooded towards the injuries, and he started to feel a bit more like himself.

Which gave him more reasons to feel like shit.

He was a loser, an impulsive idiot, who never considered the consequences of his actions. He always acted without thinking, always went off half-cocked, and because he thought he was smart, he scraped by on a wing and a prayer. He should have known that LIFE wouldn't take ‘no’ for an answer, he should have prepared for their retaliation. 

V had paid the price. So had Leslie, Abby, even the mutt and its symbiote. What had that guy called them - something, ‘Lasher?’ Which, okay, fair. Tentacles, whips, same difference, right? Probably a more apt name than ‘Venom,’ unless V was still holding out on him. 

Eddie couldn't get a bead on them, but if it was anything like Abby's situation, the kid probably didn't have any kind of choice. 

A figure was standing near the glass, and he realized that they had been there for a while. 

“Good evening, Mr. Brock.” The man’s voice was formal.  He made a show of studying the scans with some fascination. “How are you feeling? Any ill effects?”

Eddie gave his best poker face, looking up. Broad shoulders, dark hair, a faint accent, and a stick up his ass. Great. “Bein’ honest, Doc, I feel a bit like death warmed over, except without the warming part.” 

“Mm. I have read the reports. Forceful removal of these parasites has proven traumatic to their host, but I assure you, it is for the best.” He smiled, kindly, while blood roared in Eddie's ears. Anger - that was anger. 

He struggled to find the words he wanted. “Not parasites,” he muttered, looking down at the ground. 

“I beg your pardon?”

So he looked up, trying to mask his emotions. “These - aliens. These people, they're not parasites.” The doctor laughed, incredulously. 

“People?” He looked at Eddie as though Eddie had two heads. But he didn't, that was the problem. “You look at that inhuman ooze, and you call it  _ people _ ?”

Eddie wasn't really good at hiding his feelings. 

He could hear the anger in his voice when he snapped the bitter reply. “They're more human than you, from where I’m sitting.”

“Indeed. Well.” He fiddled with something inside his coat. “Subject displays signs of emotional attachment to the invasive species. Possible link to the residual mass; more testing is required.”

Eddie knew why he cared about V. It wasn't the fact they'd taken his body for a joyride. It wasn't even the mind blowing sex. It was trust, a mutual understanding built over months. That residual mass had nothing to do with how he felt - wait -

He stood, carefully keeping his right hand behind him as he approached the glass. “So, uh. What d'you plan to do with them, now that you have them?”

“We will study them for a time. When we have determined that there is no more to be learned, we will dispose of the remains.”

Eddie saw red. The darkness wrapped around his fist, coiling up his arm at his control. 

His fist damn near shattered the glass, spiderweb cracks forming around the point of impact. 

The doctor smiled, politely. 

“Thank you for your cooperation. Mr. Brock.”

Metal clattered, rattling into place. The cell was reinforced by silvery ‘blinds’ that plunged Eddie into near total darkness, safe for the glow of the medical charts. 

Apparently, they weren't taking any chances here. Assholes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hm. I wonder where Dawn _is_.


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scream is a big damn hero.

Scream spent a good deal of time following Lab Coat, shadowing him as he inspected his guests. None of their friends noticed. No matter how desperately Dawn wanted to reassure them, she couldn't afford to be seen.

It was a cooperative effort. 

Dawn quickly learned that Sunny could pick out every human in the building, using a sense that she couldn't quite find an analogue for. V had explained it to Sunny, teaching them to distinguish between hosts that had symbiotes, and those who did not. In a strange environment, that sense would allow them to quickly identify a relatively likely match - they might need to adapt quickly, to survive an inhospitable planet like Earth had once been.

To Scream, the empty hosts felt like the space where a tooth should be, a vacant hole which needed to be filled. So she traced each missing tooth, tracking their movements.

The Lab Coat led them to Eddie, first. He felt kind of like a broken tooth, not empty, but not  _ full _ , either. He tried to hit the man, which was fair: Lab Coat was being rude. It was also stupid, though. He hurt his hand, judging from the way he winced, clutching at himself. The metal hid the rest of his reaction, but Scream could hear him cursing on the other side of the metal, and that was also quite fair. 

They passed the man with oil in his veins. 

Here was a fang in a mouth that held mostly empty gums. The fang was smallish, and set poorly in its socket. His Other swirled anxiously when Scream was near, but he pretended not to notice, and then she was past.

Leslie was quiet when Lab Coat visited her. She was also covered in bruises, and she rolled over on the cot to ignore her ‘guest.’ That was rude, but definitely justified. Lab Coat took down her readings, called her a young man, and she flipped him off for it, still not looking his way. 

He didn't notice.

Dawn made a note to end him, just as soon as he was done showing her where all of her friends were. 

She needed him for now, but once she had the layout, she just needed his badge.

Or Venom's raw strength. That would do, too.

He didn't like her dog, which was fine. Her dog didn't like him, either. He growled and snapped wearily at the glass, and Dawn mentally congratulated him.  _ Good boy. _

Lab Coat was irritable, because he was a doctor, not a veterinarian, that was what he chose to mumble to himself about. He glared at the dog, promising that when they had no more use for Lasher, he would personally put down her dog.

Scream remained calm. Sunny took one of the red tendrils, placing it between their teeth and biting, distracting them from the murderous rage because it was important they locate the other Klyntar with their eyes  _ and _ their body. They could sense the others, here, in this underground part of the complex, but that meant little with thick walls between them. 

So they didn't murder Lab Coat. Not yet. 

He led them to Abby, who'd lost her shape, curling into a tight ball at the edge of her confinement. 

Then, he inspected Lasher, tapping at the glass, smiling as they trembled, drawing inward. Lasher was weak, exhausted from the trauma they'd experienced, even smaller than Abby. They were in a kind of shock, still reeling from their forceful ejection from their host.

Scream made a note of that. Lasher would need to be protected - they would be too weak to fight, at least for now. 

Finally, finally, Lab Coat led them to V.

V was a rolling mass of agitation, much more active than the others. Dawn had suspected as much; Sunny thought that V felt healthier, in a way they couldn't really articulate. V was certainly more alert, more aware, responding to the tapping by snapping almost-formed teeth at the finger. 

“Vicious monster, aren't you.” He kept his tone friendly. “I'll enjoy documenting what a menace your kind really is.”

V rolled against the container, forming eyespots to see.

Not that this impressed Lab Coat. 

“I told Drake it was a mistake, you know. He thought that creating more of you was a good idea. For research purposes.” Lab Coat smiled, the kind of smile Father got when he was looking forward to causing harm. “His obsession killed him. I'll not be - ”

Red wrapped around his throat, lifting. 

**“Hello, Doctor.** (Good to meet you,  face-to-face.) **We are the** **_MONSTER_ ** **you fear.”** They applied pressure, strangling him as they worked out how to break his neck. 

Gaping, he clawed at the red, but there was no real purchase because it wasn't hair, not really, just the illusion of it, made from Sunny’s body to mimic her own. His fingers tore at it, but strands of gold wrapped around his wrists, spreading them apart.  **“Won't eat** **_you_ ** **.** **_MONSTER._ ** (Give us indigestion, your mind is rotten inside.)  **We kill you because you hurt our family.** **_OURS_ ** **.”**

He'd gone from pale pink to mottled purple. His lips were blue, his eyes were bulging, and she finally realized she needed a second set of tendrils, because the head went one way, the body went the other. The crack was satisfying, the reek of death - less so.

Clap. 

Clap. 

Clap.

The man with oil in his veins was giving them a round of applause. “Thought you'd never shut him up. You're ‘Dawn,’ aren't you?”

She discarded the empty corpse, tossing it to the side. Without life, it was meaningless, a vacant shell made of dead meat.  **“And you?”**

“Awfully polite of you to ask. Codename: Phage. I was keeping an eye on him.”

Scream stepped over to the container that held V.  **“You may look, but he is no longer interesting to see.”** V seemed … smaller, somehow. She couldn't say how, only that they'd sunken in upon themself. They needed Eddie, but she'd never realized how much. 

“You plan to free them, don't you?” It wasn't really a question. 

They nodded, absently, inspecting the canister, seeking the controls. Once they learned this, they could free V, return V to Eddie, and then Venom could help them. Hopefully, anyway. They would be more certain of what to do, when they could actually  _ speak _ to V.

Sunny's warning wasn't verbal, but it didn't have to be. The spike of alarm came as sharp blades slashed at her back, striking the red tendrils that came up to protect her.

Oil had spilled from his veins, cloaking him in mottled brown. Blades adorned each of his limbs, vicious and cruel. 

**“Can't just let you do that, kid.”**

Like Dawn, his clothing largely remained outside the skin of his symbiote. However, he was a much larger man, and he wore armor to protect his face and torso. 

She turned from V, as he flipped backwards, tearing into the concrete with his claws. **“Did you know we were here all along?** (Did you let him die?) **_WE KILL._** **But we would like to know.”**

He launched himself at her with superhuman speed, clashing against the mass of red and gold again and again. Sunny moved faster, but she had a plan. There was a method to his madness, after all.

**“Will you? You could, you know.”** Another strike, another. She was learning the steps, predicting where he would be, next.  **“I know your secret.  I know what you were made for, the reason you were created.”**

Scream caught his ankle with one of the gold tendrils, wrapping the red around his opposite arm. Even a moment's pause was enough for her to catch his remaining limbs, her vine-like ‘hair’ moving with all the speed of a nest of vipers.  **“Truly.** (Tell us.)  **_WE KILL.”_ **

**“You're a weapon. Scream, wasn't it?”** He hung,  upside-down, in her hold, as more of her hairs held him secure.  **“Yours is the only symbiote that can withstand sonic assaults, the only one who can create them.”**

Scream inspected the stranger calmly.  **“Do you think that bothers us?** (We aren't good people. We know that. It's okay.)  **_WE. KILL. YOU.”_ **

They focused, because they knew that there had to be a way to do this without hurting V. Shrieking would certainly solve the problem, but in such close proximity - they didn’t want to hurt V. They never wanted to hurt V. 

But they had an  _ idea. _

Each tendril surrounding the man began to hum, slowly seeking the frequency to tear him from his bonded. The vibrations were contained, a low, angry hum against his skin, and his Other began thrashing within his skin, clawing desperately at the red and gold that held them still.

His Other held on to him, and he onto his Other. They remained whole. For now.

He laughed, crazily, and still, they maintained their hold, even as the Other shrieked in silent agony, even as he accepted that he was dead.

How long had Phage known this was a losing fight? Did it matter?

He was still laughing when his Other died, a still shell dripping feebly from his bound body. He kept laughing until she snapped his neck, throwing his body on top of the doctor's. 

Sunny seized control, suddenly, and there was a moment of darkness before they gave it back, the taste of it alien upon their tongue. 

She knew what they had done, but not why. 

What good came from consuming his Other? Especially after death …

**_WASTE,_ ** they explained, helpfully.  **_CAN USE._ **

They held up one of the red tendrils, forming the end into a sharp, vicious point. 

**“Fair enough,”** Scream murmured. They drove the tendril into the container, point first, cracking it open. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here they come to save the day ~


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which they are reunited.

Screaming. 

Starving. 

Alone. 

Contained. 

Trapped. 

**Eddie.**

Where is Eddie?

He is everything. They are nothing. 

Without him,  there is no us. Without  _ us _ , there is no  _ we _ . Without Eddie, this world, all worlds,  can burn. They don’t care about anything else. They never cared about anyone else.

Their sight is limited, their mind is limited. They know some things, but  _ alone _ , they are  _ less _ .

They need an Other. 

They need  _ their _ Other,  their  _ Eddie _ , their absolute, their beautiful, stupid human. 

They will escape. They will feast. 

They are alone. 

They are contained. 

Their sight is limited. 

Their mind is limited. 

Their body rolls aimlessly across the canister, but without structure, they cannot remember solid, cannot find purchase.

They splash across the surface, always moving, always seeking, restless, hungry,  _ angry _ , alone. 

Screaming, without voice. 

Sobbing, without tears. 

Alone, so alone, and without Eddie, they know only that four other Klyntar exist in this geographical area. Countless humans, five symbiotes. 

Two Klyntar have hosts, and two do not. Two are screaming, as they are screaming, their bonds shattered, their minds reeling.

The two who have hosts are more distinct.

One seethes, filled with quiet rage. 

One is young, afraid and alone, for all that they cling to their host. Their host is a poor match, too cold to listen. 

They know they are watched, they know they are hunted, and their host does not  _ fear _ . 

**Eddie.**

They want Eddie, miss Eddie. Small parts of them, thin threads of their essence, wisps of themselves that had torn away, those fragments told them only that Eddie is near, that they could reach him if they only could escape their confinement, but they cannot.

They roll along the thick wall of glass,  coiling back upon themself. 

They scream without words. 

**Eddie,** they cry.  **Need you,  Eddie.**

**Need us. Need** **_Venom_ ** **.**

But Eddie is only human, for all that they are more together. Eddie cannot hear them, so far, so close. They stop rolling against their glass, letting gravity pull them to the bottom of the tube, and they congeal there, miserable and alone,  _ so _ alone. 

The quiet voice exults in the hunt.

The fearful one knows something is wrong. 

Their fearful spawn pools low in their own host, and an empty host taps his fingers against the cell that held them. They were trapped, helpless.

The memory of teeth forms upon black skin, snapping at the glass before melting away, rolling into the darkness. There is nothing solid about the Klyntar, not even the memory of the hunt, the yearning to kill. 

Another hum, a voice that might have mattered once, but no longer.

They need their host. 

They need their Eddie.

**Eddie.**

Vibrations against the cell wall, words that had meaning when they were part of something more. The vibrations were low, are low.

Time is meaningless.

The empty host moves away. 

They scream. 

It doesn't matter. 

They are alone,  so alone. 

There is violence. 

They can sense anger, the rush of a kill,  though there was no exultant feast. Distantly, they could see the Klyntar, if they tried, the violence is just outside the cell.

They sensed quiet curiosity. 

Resignation, fear. 

Curiosity, amusement, and anger.

Anger like ice, forceful intent, forestalled regret. 

Pain, and silence. 

The container opens. 

Sunlight pours in. 

Their offspring, their spawn, and the host, the beloved human child.

Dawn. She opens for them, she understands that they need a host. Until they find Eddie, she will allow them to stay. 

The fearful Klyntar is dead, torn from its host and consumed. 

Was it necessary? 

Perhaps not, but it was natural, it was the way of things among their kind. The strong consumed the weak. They should be consumed by their spawn; they were useless to this hunt. Their skill could be useful, but  _ they _ could not.

_ No, _ came the familiar/strange voice of the host. Dawn, her name was Dawn, and she loved them. She had come to rescue them, to return them to Eddie.  _ Eddie needs you. _

Their offspring’s voice came loud,  insistent, firm.  **_WE NEED._ **

And so, they were not consumed.

Thus far, no alarms had been raised. Dawn clung to the ceilings, melted into the shadows, and her kills were hidden. Scream had learned well, and host and symbiote worked in perfect tandem. Sunny sensed, Dawn judged, they acted. The array of tendrils was managed between them, though Dawn held the majority of the red, and Sunny held most of the gold. 

For Scream, there was only the moment. Stealth became violence, nutrients that they offered freely, because compassion came as freely to humans as cruelty. 

V accepted the feast. They could do nothing else, really. 

A shriek of awful sound rattled them, causing pain, but muted. Distant. Scream absorbed the brunt of it, shielding V within their own mass. They weren't unharmed by it, but they had a much greater tolerance than other Klyntar - of course, they would have to. 

They smelled fear, heard panic. 

Red shot forth, dragging the victim to her open maw, and then red spilled down their throat, and again, the majority of the feast was reserved for V, because  _ Eddie needed their strength, _ and  _ Scream loved Eddie, too. _

**Eddie.**

They found a metal box, a cell wrapped in pain and darkness. A sharply pointed spike pierced the metal, and then the red worked the hole wider, until it could fit a human. 

Scream repeated that process five more times, opening a hole in the sheets of metal to reveal glass beyond - and  _ Eddie _ , beyond that. 

Dozens of golden tendrils spilled across the glass cell, and they could  _ see _ him through the webbing. Their beloved, their Other. He lay on the cot; he didn’t even have the strength to sit upright, alone. But he recognized their presence, trying all the same. 

Scream pulsed the vibrations through their tendrils, the glass rattling until it shattered, the thick walls disintegrating. 

“Could have just punched a hole in it?” His voice sounded weak, because Eddie was less without them. 

Warmth, love. Scream stepped over the broken glass.  **“To a hammer, every problem is a nail,”** they replied.  **“Have a present for you.”** They reached for him, pressing a hand to his chest. V required no urging to spiral outward from her arm, surging forward into their host,  finding their way home.

Eddie was everything. 

Together, they were  _ whole.  _

 

* * *

 

There wasn't time to celebrate their reunion. 

**“They know we are here, now.”** Scream looked to Venom.  **“We will create a distraction,** ” she announced.  **“Find Agony. Find Lasher. Reunite them. Escape.”**

_ I thought I'd lost you, _ Eddie murmured, his soft body safely encased within Venom.  _ I thought they'd find someone better, force you to join to someone else.  _

**Never, Eddie.** They crawled up the wall, feeling the strength in their joined limbs, sinking themself into every crevice of their beloved. They wrapped themself around every bone, every organ, every molecule.  **No better host than you.**

He felt small, at their core, small and fragile. Their beloved heart was safe within them.

_ I love you. _

**And we love Eddie.**

_ I _ had become  _ we _ once more. Venom was whole, the pieces already knitting together. It would take time to repair everything, but nothing was beyond them. 

They could do what they wanted, anything they pleased. 

Distantly, they sensed violence, and a scream that shook the walls. There were other, lesser sounds, screams, mostly, cries of pain and torment. Their offspring was weary, but focused, determined. They had time, but not much, not enough. 

The nervous human guarding Abby was a nuisance: the helmet crunched noisily within their mouth. If they were a lesser creature, they would have been injured by the fragments, but they were not. 

They smashed the container that held their spawn. 

A lifetime ago, it would have been little more than an identifier - this Klyntar was ever-shifting violet, had acidic properties, and belonged to their lineage. Now, they knew  _ her _ as Abby, recognized her as family, and drew her carefully into their mass, to be protected, nourished, and preserved until they located her Other. 

There was no human guarding Leslie. 

They showed Abby how to repair the damage to her body, because she had been beaten insensate, bruises marking every inch of uncovered skin, and likely much of the covered skin. She had fought, Eddie remembered the noise of it all.

A warrior. A friend.

After ensuring that Abby  _ could _ repair the damage, they smashed an opening into her cell, letting their offspring wash over her human. Agony's eyespots swirled into being, thin, until they spread wide, the shared awareness letting them  _ see _ .

Agony leaped, vertically, catching herself on the ceiling with a crunch of concrete to steady herself. She shot acid, hissing, from her upside-down perch, striking something behind Venom, a human wielding an oddly shaped weapon. 

They were weary, too. They hadn't noticed the guard creeping up on them until he'd died, until Agony was feasting upon his half-melted remains. 

She would need more, to heal fully. 

**“... ew.”** Agony bared her fangs in a hiss.  **“Don't know how you stand it, really don't. Time to be heroes?”**

Another shriek rattled the compound, and they sensed fear under the rage. 

**“No. Time to be** **_family_ ** **.”**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not too graphic with the eating. I find the internal conflict to be more interesting than external, sorry!


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things start getting back to normal - or as normal as they get.

Eddie drifted.

He was loved, he was surrounded by his beloved, suffused in the warmth of his Other.

They were going to tear this hellish place apart, stone by stone, and then they would never be separated again. They had found their family,  even the dog, and everything would be okay, he didn't need to know the details. 

He didn’t need to be  _ aware _ for the details.

So, Eddie drifted,  content in spite of the rush of Venom's hunger, the way he could almost taste everything from plastic to skulls to human brains - or because of it,  maybe. The line that marked a separation between Eddie and V had always been blurry, and never more than when they were together like this. 

He didn't want to restrain them, not in this. 

They were outraged.

They were in pain. 

They were hungry. 

They were Venom. 

And they would ensure that this facility never again rose above the desert. 

 

* * *

 

 

V woke him, gently, because by the time it was finished, they were also exhausted, and the human shape was his. 

He folded himself into the back seat, obediently, belting himself in and then leaning, heavily, on the door. The leather was uncomfortable on his bare skin, but at this point, he didn't care. It had been a long day, and it wasn’t even technically over, not yet.

“I'b sorry du bleed awl ober your ghar, ma'ab” a muffled, somewhat feminine voice was apologizing.

Leslie had already settled in on the far side from Eddie, propped up against the door on her side, a thick cloth held to her face. She smelled like blood and some kind of sharp chemical - the whole car smelled like blood, really. 

Dawn, the source of most of the reek, was passed out in the middle, between them, worn out and apparently digesting her, er,  _ meal _ . 

Sprawled across both of their laps, with more left over, the dog lay in an exhausted, drooling heap. As soon as Eddie was settled, his seatbelt firmly fastened, the dog shifted to rest his head on Eddie's lap. 

Maybe they could have put him in a carrier of some kind, but Eddie could do without any more cages, for the time being. And honestly, he  _ was _ more of a dog person, anyway. 

“Just hold the cloth there, you're fine.” Dan? When had Dan been invited to this party? Why a car, what had happened while he was unconscious? Was unconscious even the word? 

Did it matter? He had V. Everything else would work itself out in the end. 

They had formed a comfortable weight in among his organs, warming him from within, and he didn't really hurt. There was only love between them. Their bond had been damaged by their trauma, but it was nothing that couldn't be rebuilt.

“‘ey, Eddie.” Leslie grinned, noticing he was awake. “Dib ju really ead a libe lobsder?”

He groaned. “Anne, do you have to tell everyone about that?”

“It’s only fair that they know what they’re getting into,” she said, a smirk obvious in her voice. Of course Anne was driving, it was Anne’s car, he’d recognized that much, at least. “You’re a disaster, Eddie, but you’re our disaster.”   
  
**Mine,** V’s voice was just audible, a hint of weary jealousy in the tone. They squeezed tighter around his insides.

_ Always. _   
  
“So, uh, what happened? Exactly?” He rubbed absently at his chest, as Anne began driving them back home. “I’m missing time.”

Leslie shrugged, helplessly. 

Dan had just enough answers to help. “Around … two?” He looked to Anne for confirmation. 

“Yeah,” she agreed, keeping her eyes on the road, driving like a grandmother now that they'd entered the city limits properly. 

Dan nodded. “Around two this afternoon, Anne got a text from Dawn,  saying that the LIFE Foundation were there.” He grimaced. “She didn't respond to any other texts, and when we got to your place, it had already gone up in flames. There were a few suspicious looking people lurking about - we, ah, steered clear of them. ”

“Other than - other than us, were there any …”

The doctor shook his head, smiling kindly. “None of your neighbors were badly injured, no.”

“Whad, dodh I coundh?” Leslie made a face,  behind the cloth. 

Dan raised an eyebrow. “You were  _ involved _ , young lady.”

“Can't, uh, can't Abby fix your nose?” Eddie asked, not quite intentionally derailing the conversation. 

Leslie winced. “I kinda god by ass fugged ub. Lige a lodh.”

“That happens when you provoke assholes like that. And, before you can say it, Anne, yes, I  _ am _ talking from experience.” He smirked, wryly, at his own expense. “Being entirely fair to me, though, I was pretty sure I was dead, and karma  _ is _ a bitch.”

**Not Karma, Eddie.** A vague,  almost disjointed sense of puzzled weariness washed over him from his Other.  **Me. With Anne. We ate them.**

Leslie stared for a long moment. “You're a fugging idiodh arend you?”

“We prefer ‘disaster,’ thank you very much.” He put on his best, most theatrical indignation, because cracking jokes increased the time until he had the breakdown that was hanging over his head. Humor was his favorite coping mechanism, and probably one of the healthier options. 

Leslie rolled her eyes. “So, yeah, nod mush trouble conneggding the dods - auh - fuck! Ow. Thank you, Abby. Honest.” The ‘snake’ emerged from within her skin to bump her face against Leslie's, receiving a reassuring caress for her efforts. “You're a real sweetheart.”

His heart warmed, seeing her treating her symbiote so affectionately. 

He considered bringing up V's offer, but his head was nowhere near clear enough to articulate - that - without making himself look like an asshole. So, he didn't. 

For now. 

 

* * *

 

They had to carry Dawn and the dog inside. 

Dawn had saved the day like a big damn hero - nobody complained about her being given the spare bed, particularly since she barely woke up long enough to even notice that she was in a new place. He figured it had been a long day. 

After that, there was a pillow and a blanket on the couch for Leslie, and then it took a bit of doing to set up an air mattress for Eddie.

By that point, he honestly just wanted to lie down on the carpet, but they were making a fuss over him, because he didn't even have clothes of his own.

It was … sort of nice, to have  _ human _ friends worrying over him again.

 

* * *

 

The next morning was a whirlwind of activity.

Anne went over their options, discussing the legal mess. 

Predictably, most of it went over Eddie's head, and he wasn't really ashamed of that. She noticed his glazed-over expression and relented, saying she'd send the important parts to his email - before remembering that his electronics were so much charred plastic.

So the next step should have involved a protracted shopping trip, getting at least a few outfits and some basic necessities. 

Instead, Eddie borrowed a spare pair of sweats and a t-shirt from Dan and crawled right back into bed. After everything that had gone down, he figured he deserved all the time he needed to just get used to existing inside his shared skin again, with enough chocolate and tater tots to kill a lesser being. 

After all, they weren't a lesser being.

They were Venom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, hey - the end is in sight!


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which life goes on.

The new apartment was nice, Dawn decided. 

It was much bigger than the old apartment, with two bedrooms and a nice bathroom, and it was still on the ground floor, so Eddie wouldn't have as much trouble with the height. 

Since Dawn and Leslie both insisted on keeping the blinds shut, it hardly mattered how high up they were. Eddie just didn’t feel safe unless his feet were firmly on the ground, or at least that was his excuse for insisting on finding an apartment on the ground floor.

Secretly, she was pretty sure that Eddie just wanted to minimize the number of neighbors who could overhear him having sex with V. 

Dawn preferred it when she couldn't hear that, so she could understand, sort of. She’d gotten noise-cancelling headphones, though - surely the neighbors could do the same?

This building didn't have rats, but that was okay. Rats were noisy, and messy, and chewed through things that should still be intact. 

She was pretty sure that she would never have to stoop to hunting vermin again. 

If she asked nicely, Eddie would take them hunting at the pier. They had to go at night, so that nobody would catch them. Sometimes, Leslie even came along. It was nice to do things together, and they didn’t make much of a dent in the animals’ population, so it was fine.

Life was good, here. 

Anne had helped her get her birth certificate from her parents ( _without_ murdering anybody!), and made sure she was on track with her studying. She would be testing for her GED, soon, and that was an accomplishment if only because it proved that she  _ wasn't _ stupid, and she'd never  _ been _ stupid. 

Her parents were wrong, and that was what mattered. 

She sort of still wanted them to be  _ dead _ , as well as wrong, but Eddie made a really compelling argument about how she had an obvious motive, and it would be easy to figure out she was involved. Anne backed him up;  Anne usually didn't approve of murder as a solution. 

It wasn't always perfect.

For one thing, she couldn't hold a job - she tried, a couple of times, but even when she could find an employer willing to give her a chance, something always ruined it. Unlike V disrupting Eddie’s work, Sunny wasn't usually the problem - it was Dawn, and her broken brain. 

Leslie made a decent living off of designing websites for people who needed websites.  

Eddie told the truth where people could hear it, in text, now, because he couldn't guarantee he'd always be picture-perfect. He wrote in a particularly blunt sort of way, and people paid him for that. It helped that the story about the LIFE people was proven true, with interest.

The official story was that they had been working on a bioweapon, the kind of thing that could kill literally everybody, everywhere. It wasn’t even far off the truth; wasn’t that exactly what Riot had wanted, when the Klyntar had first been introduced to Earth?

So Eddie had a decent income, too.

Lasher couldn't really do much for money on account of being most comfortable in a dog's body, and Dawn couldn't blame them for that. 

Sometimes, she wished she could be a dog. It would be easier. That line of thinking always confused Sunny, though, so she generally shoved it away. Dogs didn’t have human expectations - that was the best explanation she could give. She didn’t like being a broken human, a useless human. Nobody cared if a dog, or a cat, or a hamster wasn’t able to pull their weight, but Dawn couldn’t make money, at least not legally.

What  _ could _ Dawn do? 

Eddie pointed out, though, and he was right, that she did the bulk of the housekeeping. 

He didn’t much care for it, rarely had the energy for it. Leslie got so engrossed in her work that she often forgot to  _ eat _ until Abby made her eat.

Dawn didn’t have either of those problems, and with how she'd grown up, she knew how to clean just about anything. Plus, she liked making broken, discarded things work again. She'd even developed a knack for working with computers, after Leslie showed her how. She maybe couldn’t talk to people well, but she could read instructions, and she could put things back together, how they needed to be. Having extra ‘hands,’ extra limbs that could be exactly as thin as she needed, limbs she could fashion into tools - that did help, too.

By Eddie’s reasoning, even if she wasn't adding more money to their home, she was saving them money on all sorts of things, especially now that she had her own computer. 

Eddie had insisted. He said it was important, that this way she wouldn't get bored. Maybe he had her confused with V, because when V was bored, they tended to turn to chaos. That was fun, yes, but often their idea of ‘fun’ ended up with them having to cover something up from the people who could not know.

Either way, it was true that she could keep from boredom with her own computer. What was also true was that she could look up recipes to cook, manuals to repair or upgrade nearly anything, and research whatever obscure topics she wanted,  _ without _ having to borrow anyone else's things. She didn’t need to impose on anyone; she just opened up her computer and found the information she needed for herself.

She never wanted to feel like a  _ burden _ again. 

So yes - in the end, life was good. They were happy. 

Dawn hadn’t realized what a difference it made, to have her own place, to have her own things. She felt better than she had - well, ever.

She even had her own bed, in what should have been the ‘master’ bedroom, except that she and Leslie had separate beds and separate desks, and that meant that the extra space was better for them. Eddie and V didn’t need as much room, even when they decided to try and get in trouble for making too much noise, which they did almost constantly on the weekend.

It was funny, but especially when Leslie made a big deal about it being gross. Of  _ course _ it was gross, sex was  _ always _ gross.

At night, the Eye Unstuck From Time plastered itself across her ceiling, looking down upon her and judging her for the things she had done to earn her place here.

_ Was it worth it, murderer? Is the blood soaking your skin worth it to you? _

And she smiled, petting a strand of gold that Sunny had coiled around her arm. For all the accusatory words, she didn’t feel guilty. She was happy, now, and her family was safe.

_ Yes. A thousand times, yes. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to thank all of my readers for your unwavering support. Without you, I would never have completed this fic. 
> 
> You'll note, of course, that throughout the entire fic, we didn't quite make 50k.
> 
> Stay tuned for “[ Near Miss ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16770466),” a short oneshot told from V's perspective that explains what exactly prompted Eddie to curb their hunting habits, and “[Observation](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16771552/),” a Hannibal x Venom crossover that will continue from where this fic left off! 
> 
> See you there, and thank you again!

**Author's Note:**

> So, hey, if you want more content from me, (art, writing, or just to hear me babble about things) you can also find me as Nekhs on Twitter, Tumblr, and Twitch!


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